Once, Long Ago
by wbss21
Summary: The battle against Dr. Doom is a losing one, the Avengers struggling badly against a newer generation of Doombot, and the Latvarian dictator himself. Until they receive some unexpected help in the form of Thor's wayward and villainous little brother. In the aftermath, revelations will be made about Loki, understandings will shift, and new friendships formed.
1. Chapter 1

**Once, Long Ago:**

 **Chapter 1:**

"We're losing ground Cap." Tony's voice comes through the com in Steve's ear.

To anyone else, Tony would sound glib and calm as ever, but Steve can hear the edge in his tone, the stress.

"I know." He answers, gritting his teeth as he pushes back with his shield against the Doombot currently trying to take his head off.

"There's too many of them." Tony goes on, unhelpfully.

"I know!" Steve snaps.

He isn't as strong as this thing, and using brute force against it isn't going to work, he realizes. He needs to use it's own momentum against it, and so he changes tactics, letting his shield skid along the robots metal frame and off. When it stumbles forward with the loss of his resistance, he spins, smashing the edge of his shield against the back of the bots neck, hard and fast, severing its head in one, clean blow.

"Nice one Cap." Tony says, before the sound of his rupulsor blasts drown the rest of his voice out.

Glancing up, and he sees Tony rocketing overhead, at least half a dozen of Doom's machines on his tail.

Bringing his eyes back to the ground, looking around him, his heart begins to sink as he realizes just how truly outnumbered and outgunned they are.

There's got to be a hundred or more of Doom's machines. And then there's Doom himself, deciding this time to join the fray.

When they'd gotten the call that the Latvarian leader was attacking mid-town Manhattan, Steve had figured, along with the rest of the team, that it would be business as usual, Doom sending in twenty or thirty of his bots to stir up some trouble. A relatively easy containment situation.

But when they'd arrived on scene, it had been nothing like that at all.

The robots themselves had been their first indication that Doom was maybe more serious in his intent than usual, the tech on the things vastly more advanced than anything they'd yet seen from the dictator, the Doombots proving infinitely more difficult to take out, and incredibly more dangerous and effective in their attacks.

The second indication had been Doom himself being there, and that was spelling bad news for everyone involved.

Doom was insane. He was insane, and extremely, frighteningly powerful. A _magic_ user, though Thor had told the team repeatedly that Doom's magic was not innate. That he had somehow unlocked how to harness the naturally occurring magical energy of their realm, how to harness it and focus it.

Whatever the case, none of them were really equipped to deal with the madman besides Thor himself, able as he was to counter Doom's attacks with his hammer. Only currently, their resident Thunder god was too busy fighting off hordes of Doom's robots to focus on the culprit himself.

That left Wanda who, though she'd been progressing in her training admirably, and had shown incredible power herself, her magic innate to her, unlike Doom, still, she was only a kid with technically very little combat experience, and was still learning how to control her abilities.

Doom was at that moment making a fool of her, playing with her as he easily, almost casually countered her attacks, returning her fire with his own blasts of magic, very obviously not meant as lethal, but rather as a means to humiliate her. And it was working. Looking over, Steve could see Doom swat aside another of Wanda's blasts like it was no more than an irritating fly, before hurtling his own back at her, the blast of blue light drilling into her midsection and knocking her flat onto her back.

He felt his jaw clench, fear churning unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach.

"Thor," he starts. "You need to come down and take care of Doom. Maximoff's in trouble."

"I am trying, Friend Steve." He hears Thor answer, a biting growl following on the heels of the reply. "Only I am presently occupied, as doubtless you can see. There are a great many of these mechanical men."

"No shit Sherlock." Clint's voice comes through, sounding ragged and strained. "Cap, we're fucked here. We've barely made a dent in these bastards."

Steve barely even notices the fowl language, his eyes fixed on Wanda and Doom. He only gets a moment to see the dictator moving towards her prone, unmoving form, before he's suddenly attacked by three more machines, his focus dragged away.

"No!" He snaps, fear plummeting like a stone into the pit of his stomach. "Thor, Maximoff needs you now!"

He gets no reply from the god though, only sudden static as he struggles badly against the Doombots, the ambush demanding all of his strength and concentration.

He keeps shooting his gaze towards Wanda and Doom, his panic almost choking him as he watches the dictator continue to stride, slow and nonchalant towards his downed teammate. He has to get over there, Steve thinks desperately. He has to...

His loss of focus costs him, as he's hit square in the chest by one of the bots repulsor blasts, knocking him to his knees, losing grip of his shield, the thing skittering away from him against the torn up concrete of the ground.

He barely manages to roll away, out from under one of the bots descending feet, meant to crush his face, and as he comes up onto his knees, he again snaps his gaze to Wanda and Doom, pushing himself to standing, already beginning towards them.

He has no idea how he's going to stop Doom, but he has to try.

His eyes widen then as he sees a man walking towards them from the opposite direction. A civilian, from the looks of him, dressed in nothing but a white, short sleeved t-shirt and a pair of loose fitting sweat paints. He's bare foot, tall and skinny and, oh Jesus Christ, the idiot is going to get himself killed!

"Wait!" Steve yells, both in an attempt to distract Doom from Wanda, who he now stands directly over, and to warn the civilian away.

His attempt seems to accomplish neither, as Doom crotches down over his teammate, hands poised above her, as if to perform some horrible ritual, and the civilian just continues dumbly forward, clueless, it seems, to the danger.

Blue light begins to gather round the dictators spread hands, growing brighter by the second, gaining strength.

Oh God, Steve thinks, breaking into a full on sprint, Wanda is going to die. He's going to lose another soldier. He's going to...

And then the civilian is at Doom's back, and Christ Almighty, he's got his hand on the dictator's shoulder. Is saying something to him.

Doom begins to stand, to turn, his every aspect hostile and violent, and this fool man is going to get himself turned to dust, Steve thinks, he's going to die, and Steve isn't going to get there in time to save him. To save anyone.

And then it all comes into focus.

Thirty yards out, and the Captain all at once sees who it is... who the civilian is. Tall and skinny, almost scrawny even, with hair blacker than obsidian, skin white as fresh fallen snow.

His hand on Doom's shoulder suddenly squeezes, and Steve watches as the madman's armor crushes in like an aluminum can underneath a heavy boot.

He sees Doom panic, flailing out, groping for the man, thick, metal fingers burying in the material of his t-shirt, blue energy beginning to form.

That's as far as he gets, before he's lifted bodily off the ground, easily as if he weighed nothing at all, and thrown, violently, through the air, crashing with shaking impact into the road's asphalt.

There's a flash of blinding, green light. Steve turns from it, searing against his eyes, and when he looks back, Loki is standing over Doom, still dressed in the same, flimsy clothing, reaching down towards the fallen dictator.

The Captain isn't even sure what it is that happens next.

There's another flash of green, like the color of pine needles, a scent filling the air much the same, and Loki's fingers have punctured the metal of Doom's suit, the light pouring out of it, out of the holes in Doom's mask. And then there is a scream, rending the air, high pitched and agonized... terrified.

"Brother, no!" Thor is there then, slamming down from the air by Loki's and Doom's side, reaching out and grasping hold the smaller god's slender arm. "Stop this." He demands, and Loki looks up at him, his face twisted in anger and disgust.

He says something in return, but Steve is still too far away to make it out, Loki's voice too soft to hear.

He tears away from Thor then, letting Doom go and stepping back, away. He glares at Thor a long moment, fury plain on his face.

And then, in a swift turn, he looks round, before suddenly slicing his hand through the air, so sharp it's as if he's trying to cut through it.

And all at once, every single Doombot collapses like empty shells to the ground, lifeless, useless...

Another explosion of green, blinding light, and Loki is gone.

Doom is still there, lying, moaning and barely conscious on the ground, his suit crushed in and rent apart in several places.

Thor stands, pensive, his arms crossed stiffly over his chest as he stares, unblinking, at the spot his little brother had just been standing a moment before, Wanda beginning to come to, starting to sit up, Clint and Natasha both at her side, checking on her.

Steve can only look on at the scene in horrified confusion as Tony lands beside him, his face mask coming up.

"Uh..." he starts, the whole area suddenly, eerily silent. "what the hell just happened?"

Steve wishes he knew.

He really, really wishes he knew.

/

"Does somebody want to explain to me what the fuck just happened?!"

Clint paces back and forth, plainly irritated and unsettled, the rest of the team standing around, arms crossed and speechless.

"Good question." Tony puts in after a moment. "If I'm not mistaken, or hallucinating, and honestly, I didn't have _that_ much to drink last night, that was Loki. Right? Thor? Talk to me Thunder Thighs. That was baby bro out there?"

Thor shoots a withering glare at Tony, his face set in hard, unhappy lines as he gives a curt, single nod.

"Aye." He answers.

"Right." Tony goes on. "Okay, wow. That's... really horrifying."

"What do you mean?" Thor asks, tone defensive and angry.

"Uh, well..." Tony goes on. "considering crazy cakes just took out Doom and his entire fleet of robo-buddies like they were last Sunday's trash, I'd say that's pretty fucking terrifying. Did you know he was that powerful? Cause I sure didn't know he was that powerful." He turns to Steve, as if asking him.

"I..." Steve starts, having really no idea what to say.

"I have told you all many times of my brother's strength." Thor steps in.

"Yeah, buddy, but..." Tony continues. "we were getting our assess handed to us out there. Seriously. We were _losing_. And what, Loki just shows up, beats the shit out of Doom, does some magic hand wavy thing and kills all his robots? Are you telling me..."

"As I said, I have told you all many times of my brother's strength. I have told you well how he is the most powerful sorcerer in all of Asgard. Only the All-Father boasts greater power. It is not my failing if you did not listen."

"So what, are you saying your psychotic brother has just been fucking with us this whole time?" Clint snaps, stopping his pacing and staring at Thor. "He's been playing us?"

"If what you mean to ask is, has Loki been serious in intent when he has engaged us in the past, then the answer is no. As you say, Clint Barton, he has been _playing_ us." Thor replies coldly.

"Why?" Natasha asks suddenly.

Thor turns towards her, his eyes narrowed.

"I cannot..." he starts, but she cuts him off.

"Thor, you're not telling us something. You were the only one standing close enough to Loki to hear what he said. If what you say is true, and he's just been playing with us, then why? And why did he even involve himself in this battle? Why did he go after Doom like that?"

"Again, good question." Tony chimes in, and Steve sighs.

They'd all trudged back to Avengers Tower to convene and discuss after SHIELD had taken Doom into custody, Wanda carted off to the infirmary just to check her over, but so far, they were getting nowhere.

The room falls quiet as they wait on Thor to answer, the god looking away from them all, expression stony and thoughtful.

Steve is about the press again for answers when his team mate begins to again speak.

"My brother is living in this realm." He starts, voice unusually subdued. "I am certain you all have gleaned such, given the frequency of his appearances."

"Wait, what do you mean _living_ here?" Clint asks, his face turning pale. "As in... he has a home here or...?"

"He has acquired a place of dwelling, aye." Thor answers bluntly. "An apartment, as you mortals call such things."

"How long have you known about this?" Natasha asks, voice clipped and unhappy.

There is a long pause, Thor's face pulling into a frown.

"... Many months now." He answers at last.

That causes an explosion of questions and protests among the team, voices rising and angry.

The chaos lasts for several seconds, until Steve raises his voice above all of theirs.

"QUIET!" He commands, and everyone falls silent, looking over at him. He shakes his head. "Thor, continue..." he orders.

"... You cannot understand my brother." Thor goes on after a moment. "You cannot know him. His mind is vast, great in its depth. He has lived through much. Seen and experienced such things as none of you could hope to comprehend."

He pauses, turning away.

"You know Loki only as an invader of your world. As a would be dictator. But my brother and I... we are very old. You treat us oft as children for the youthfulness of our appearance. But we have lived many countless centuries. We have lived millennia. And though you have seen us cross weapons, though you have seen us at each others throats..." he shakes his head. "Loki was my most loyal companion for all of our lives. My most trusted friend. You cannot understand. He has saved my life times innumerable. He has spared me pain and humiliation and debasement at the sacrifice of himself suffering these things. So many times. So many countless times. I owe him much. I owe him more than you can ever understand."

At last, Thor turns back to them, staring at each of them, hard and long.

"You may mock me for my sentiment towards him. Chastise me for my continuing to keep his company. I care naught for your disapproval's. He is my little brother, and I love him. Aye, I oft visit him in his small dwelling. I keep company with him. And nay, I will _not_ reveal to you where he resides." He adds in, sharp and quick even as Natasha opens her mouth to ask. "You have seen now a glimpse of what my brother is capable. He play attacks you all. It is a game to him. A thing done for amusement.

You should have little doubt, were he purposeful in his intent against you, it would be over most quick. He could end you all, most simply, most easily. Do not doubt it. Even you, Friend Bruce. Your great Hulk would have not the time to emerge if my brother should not wish it."

"... What about the invasion?" Steve asks, feeling slightly nausea, his head spinning. "He seemed pretty serious about that."

Thor laughs, and Steve stiffens, the rest of the team as visibly uncomfortable.

"I assure you, my brother's _attempt_ on Midgard was anything but. No. I could not at first understand it. Why Loki made so many great blunders. You must understand. My brother has always been a profoundly gifted strategist. It was always he, when we came of age, who formulated our lines of attack and formation on the battle fronts. He and I both have fought in many hundreds of battles. Our experience in war is what you might call extensive. I had thought..." Thor pauses, a pained expression passing over his features for a moment, before he shakes his head and continues on. "I had thought, when we faced my brother during the Chitauri invasion, that Loki's mind had left him. That something had happened to rob him of both his wit and reason. It was the only explanation I could light on to understand his fumbling and clumsy plans.

It is only in these last, several months that I have come to understand that my assumption was only in part correct. No, I tell you now friends, Loki did all he could to ensure _we_ would win the day for your realm. He was not earnest in his attempts to win it himself."

"This... doesn't make any sense." Clint starts, his voice edged hard with anger. "You're telling us your brother wanted us to win that day? How the fuck is that even possible?"

"Why even stage an invasion then?" Natasha asks, the anger less obvious in her voice, instead a kind of cold neutrality overtaking her tone. "Why go through all that? Why cause so much damage?"

Again, there is that pained expression across the god's face.

"I told you I was only in part correct in assuming my brother's mind had left him, and that be the cause of his deranged actions." He starts after a moment, his voice strained. "But my assumption was not wholly false. My brother's mind has been damaged and... he is not as he once was. He is fragile now, in a way I can never recall of him before."

"You mean he's bat shit insane." Tony says, and Thor gives him a withering, dangerous look which shuts Tony right up.

"You will take care how you speak of my brother." Thor snaps. "I am not meant to reveal these things to you. Loki has asked my vow of silence."

"Thor," Steve starts, keeping his voice soft, understanding. "we get that. But this is a matter of security and safety for our entire world. Your brother is residing here, you said. He's living here on Earth. And whether his attempt at taking over our world was serious or not, he still DID attempt it. And you as much as just admitted to us that he isn't mentally stable. You're gonna have to explain to us what's going on."

Thor nods, the lines of anguish on his face only growing deeper.

"It has taken me many months to convince Loki to tell me the truth of what happened to him when he let himself fall into the void. It... I cannot..."

"... Thor." Steve prompts again when several seconds pass by in silence.

"He was found by a creature. By... by a being long thought by us to be mere myth. A being with power enough to rival the All-Father. He is called Thanos, from a race of beings called Titans. In all the stories and histories written of him, we know that he is undoubtedly insane. He is called the Mad Titan. This is who found my brother... who pulled him from the void and..."

"... And?" Clint hisses.

"He kept Loki as his prisoner for nearly a year of your mortal time. He tortured him..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake... You believe that shit!?" Clint starts.

"IT IS NOT A MATTER OF BELIEF!" Thor booms, a crack of thunder crashing outside the tower, so loud it causes the windows to rattle ominously in their frames, and the team falls completely silent.

Thor stares at them all, his eyes shockingly blue, burning too bright to be natural, and Steve knows it's the power of lightening, coursing through his blood.

"... He was tortured." The god finally goes on after long, painful seconds. "In ways so terrible, you cannot even begin to conceive how deeply he has suffered. He showed me his body. It was not an illusion. No trick. I felt the scars with my bare hands. It is a wonder my brother still lives. It is a wonder he has any sound reason left in his mind at all.

Lady Natasha," he turns towards her. "you asked me why it is he invaded your realm, if his intent was never to win it. And I answer you this. It was through this action alone he could find his only means of escape from Thanos. The Titan wished for him to come here... to retrieve for him the Tesseract and open a portal through which his Chitauri army could invade. He needed my brother to do this. Loki possesses a vast and intricate knowledge of the paths between worlds. He is one of the few in all the realms truly able to walk the branches of Yggdrasil. Able to navigate their treacherous ways. Thanos, for all his great power, does not possess a linked energy to the Great Ash, as my brother does. He is not of her as Loki is.

And my brother, for nearly as long as he was held captive, refused to yield to Thanos' demands. And he did suffer for it. Beyond your understanding. He knew he would die then, if he continued thusly. Knew if he had any hope left of surviving, he would have to yield. But Loki has ever been the cleverest of gods, and he yielded full with the intent to betray Thanos, and keep the Tesseract from his hands. It was his only chance, and he took it."

Steve could hardly believe what he was hearing. Couldn't begin to wrap his mind around it. It all seemed unreal. Seemed too bizarre, too much.

"Then why does he keep attacking us?" Tony's voice jars him from his thoughts. "If everything you say is true, why does he keep acting like some crazed villain? Why not just come clean and tell us the truth? He's constantly being hunted by SHIELD, and by us. He's on several most wanted lists. He has to realize, if he's so smart, that he could save himself a lot of grief if he just told us what he's apparently told you."

"Aye," Thor nods, his arms folding tighter over his chest. "that he could. But it is many things which keeps him from it. It is his pride, which has ever been my brother's greatest weakness. And it is the damage wrought to his mind from the tortures he endured. I told you he is not as he was. He is damaged now. Broken, in a way. Grown reckless and careless. He seems... he seems not in control of his emotions as once he was. I have seen him erupt into unreasonable rage, and a moment later, break down into uncontrollable sobs."

"Is that why he attacked Doom?" Natasha presses.

"... My brother claims Doom has wronged him in some way." Thor goes on after a moment's hesitation. "Though I know not how."

" _Wronged_ him? What are they, buddies or something? Are they hanging out together?" Tony starts.

"I know not." Thor begins. "I visit my brother sparingly, and know little of what he does in those moments between."

"Oh, well, that's just _great_." Clint throws his hands up. "So your little brother, who's apparently even more psycho than we previously imagined, and also apparently _uber fucking powerful_ , is living somewhere in the middle of New York, someplace, by the way, you won't tell us where, having periodic emotional breakdowns and occasionally launching attacks on the local populace, because he thinks it's fun, throwing in one or two other super villain beat down's once in a while, just for good measure. Yup. All sounds fine and dandy to me."

"You will cease in your degrading words concerning my brother." Thor snarls at him, thunder again roiling outside the windows.

"Guys, that's enough!" Steve snaps. "This infighting isn't solving anything." He continues when he has everyone's attention. "Thor, look, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here and believe what you're telling us. But it also sounds to me like Loki is pretty unstable right now. Sure, he helped us out today, for whatever reason. But who's to say he won't snap and turn his power against us at some point? If he attacked us with the same abilities he showed earlier against Doom, then we're gonna have a serious problem on our hands."

"He will not..." Thor begins, but Steve shakes his head, cutting him off.

"He needs to be brought in Thor." He says. "If what you're saying is true, it sounds to me like your brother is suffering from PTSD. And with the kind of power he has, that could spell big trouble."

"You would not be able to contain him." Thor counters hotly. "And you only risk incurring his wrath by doing so."

"Well we can't leave him out there." Tony puts in. "Thor, buddy, he's a wanted war criminal. And he's dangerous. Obviously."

"I will not hand my brother over to you." Thor answers fast. "You will not coerce me. If, by chance, the next time he makes a display of engaging you, you manage somehow to capture him, then I will not step in to prevent it. But I will not show you where he dwells. I cannot betray his trust in such a manner."

And with that, the god turns on his heel, striding from the room, leaving the rest of the team without another word.

/

 **AN: I need BAMF Loki once in a while. Don't worry folks, they'll be plenty of angst to go with it. You know me. But yeah, BAMF Loki is my fav too.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

Loki's chest heaves as he struggles for breath, his knees going out from under him, hands burying, tugging at the strands of his hair.

He's having another attack.

He knows this with reason. Knows this outside himself, outside these feelings drowning him, pulling him under, into the black of nothingness.

Knowing so does nothing to keep him from falling.

He breathes ragged, the air pushing in and out of him is harsh gasps.

" _Think_..." he grinds his teeth together, fingers pulling harder. " _Think your way from this, you_ fool!"

Only he of all people knows it is never so simple. Escape never so easy.

It was Doom. He knows that. It was seeing the arrogant, ignorant, _pathetic_ mortal which has set these feelings off inside him.

The presumptuous dullard had actually thought, had made an _attempt_ to enter into his dwelling, had made an attempt to _abduct_ him. Tried to steal away his own power, his _magic_.

Loki could laugh now for the incomprehensible stupidity of it all, only he had been filled with such rage, and, deeper still, an almost suffocating fear as he'd been assaulted by memories... and he'd thought... for moments which seemed to stretch forever... he'd thought he was back there... thought he was trapped again... held within the power of the Mad Titan, and he couldn't get out, couldn't fight back... couldn't... couldn't do anything.

Helpless... helpless...

And then his mind had come again to the present, and Doom, the fool, had barely escaped with his life.

Loki would have ended him then and there had he not still be reeling from his own, traitorous mind.

When he'd seen on the box of moving pictures that Doom was, only some few weeks later, attacking the city, Loki had made the fast decision to finish what he had already started, in the process perhaps glean from Doom where and how he had discovered his dwelling before ending his pitiful, worthless life.

But then Thor... oh Thor, his oafish, idiot brother had interfered, as he seemed always to do, telling him no, telling him it was wrong, _wrong_ to take the life of a helpless enemy.

And what did Thor know of it!? What did he know of helplessness?! What did he know of right or wrong? Thor, who _always_ was right, who always was so perfect, so without doubt or fear or...

When had his brother become so soft hearted, that he would consider at all a fate other than death for his enemies?

He couldn't understand. Couldn't know what it was to have a threat against you such as Doom had so impetuously leveled against him. Couldn't know what it meant, what it... it...

He grinds his teeth harder, his nails digging painfully into his scalp as he clamps his lids shut, a half-strangled scream lodging in his throat as he forces it back down, a guttural growl slipping past his lips.

He has to calm down, he thinks, heart beating too hard, too fast against his ribs.

It isn't real. The thoughts in his head, they aren't _real_ , just memories... only memories... And Doom... Doom was just a man... just a weak mortal. He could do nothing, _nothing_ to harm him.

Oh, but he would _kill_ the little child, Loki thinks. He would find him and kill him. Whether Thor tried again to stop him, he would not hesitate next time, would not allow his brother to dissuade him and...

And...

He couldn't take this. He had to get out... had to go elsewhere... the confines of his small space nearly suffocating.

He knew it was a risk, going out into the streets so soon after the encounter with Doom and the Avengers, but it hardly mattered, in truth.

Even were it to happen that Thor's companions should see him, they could once again try their hand at apprehension.

Loki might even welcome the effort, as a means of distraction.

That was, after all, all he sought these days, when he made his little attacks on their bustling city.

A distraction...

An escape from his own, Hel-bound thoughts.

/

"Cap... what exactly are we doing here?" Tony asks, not for the first time, since they started on this little, suicidal venture of theirs.

Tony doesn't know about Steve, but he really doesn't feel like pissing a god off today and getting himself turned into a pile of glowing green dust, thank you very much.

And after what they watched Loki do to Doom, Tony has very little doubt Thor's wayward little brother could do just that. To probably all of them.

Steve, he thinks, may have been bitten by the cray-cray bug, with the way he'd ordered the team out onto the streets to look for Loki after Thor had stormed out of their conference. To what end, Tony still isn't quite sure.

Steve had given no more than a vague, generalized answer, that Loki was clearly a top priority. That a being of that power, mixed with the apparent instability that Thor had described, simply couldn't be left out on the streets, un-dealt with.

Tony got that. He really did. But he was damned if he could figure out just exactly _how_ Steve thought this random wandering about the city was going to get them any closer to finding out where Loki was.

In New York... there was just no way.

Maybe if it had been some _normal_ super-villain they were dealing with. You know, one who couldn't teleport immeasurable distances in literally less than a second.

But Loki could. He could _do_ that. And for all they knew, the maniac wasn't even _in_ New York anymore. He could be in some other state, some other country, hell, on some other _planet_. They couldn't know.

The whole endeavor was the very definition of futile, and Tony was starting to get tired.

"Cap, listen, we've been out for a couple hours already and, I'm gonna be honest, our chances of finding Loki are slim to no..."

"Eyes on target!" Clint's voice crackles loudly in Tony's ear, urgent and halfway to panicked.

"Wait... what!?" Tony breathes, disbelieving.

That couldn't be right. Not even remotely. Clint must have...

"Confirm Hawkeye." Steve's voice snaps out.

"The son of a bitch is sitting outside at a cafe, on the corner of Madison and 26th. Just fuckin' sitting there, drinking a fucking latte or something!"

"You have eyes on him?" Steve asks.

"I'm sitting fifty yards out from the bastard." Clint answers quickly. "I could sink an arrow into his eye from here."

"Negative Hawkeye." Steve orders. "Do not engage."

"But..." Clint starts, and the Captain shuts him down immediately.

"Do not engage." He repeats harshly. "Does he know you've spotted him?"

There's a long moment of silence, and Tony feels his gut clench.

Clint wouldn't actually be stupid enough to try and take on Loki by himself, would he?

"... I don't think so." The archer finally answers, and Tony breathes out a sigh of relief. "He seems distracted. He keeps putting his head in his hands."

"... Oh boy." Tony says. "Does he look like he's having a meltdown?"

"... Kinda. Yeah." Comes Clint's unwanted answer.

"Well shit..." Tony starts.

"Why is he even out?" Natasha chimes in then. "After what just happened with Doom? Loki's usually smarter than that."

"Fine line between genius and madness, remember." Tony adds uselessly.

"It could be a trap." Natasha goes on talking as if she hasn't even heard Tony. "Be careful Clint. Stay out of sight."

"I'm not stupid 'Tash." Clint answers hotly.

"When it comes to him you are." She answers cooly back, and Clint, apparently, has nothing to say to that.

"Hold your position." Steve again. "We'll meet you there and then decide the best course."

"Shouldn't we wait for Thor?" Tony supplies. "I think we should wait for Thor."

"Thor won't help us. He said so himself." Steve answers. "We need to deal with this on our own."

"And do what?" Tony asks, irritation starting to build, mixed in with very real fear, though he won't admit that, ever. "Walk up to Thor's psychotic, cosmically powerful brother and tell him he's under arrest? I don't think that's gonna work Cap."

Again, there comes a long silence, and again Tony feels the stirrings of unease.

"... I wanna try talking to him." Steve at last answers.

Tony can't help it.

He explodes into a laugh.

"You wanna... y-you wanna tal... talk to him!?" He manages to splutter out, not believing his ears. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

Tony's sentiment is apparently shared, as he hears Clint cursing and protesting hotly through the com, equally as shocked, though there's a tone of anger to his, not hilarity.

"You've all said it yourself." Steve cuts in, his own voice full of command, shutting Clint down. "We aren't going to take Loki. He's too powerful for that, and we've been doing nothing but playing his game for months. If he's as unstable as Thor said, then it's only a matter of time before he potentially loses it, and his attacks aren't a game anymore. We need to do something now to prevent that."

"Yeah, like killing him. That's a good solution." Clint snaps.

"And then Thor would kill us." Natasha says calmly. "That's even assuming we could take Loki out. Which we can't."

"No killing." Steve says firmly in response. "No engagement until we arrive. And then we approach this carefully."

"Can't I just..." Clint begins to protest.

" _No_." Steve cuts him off sharply.

And that's the end of that.

/

Tony feels slightly nauseous, sitting here behind a row of bushes, watching Thor's brother some, Clint was right, fifty yards away, having, again Clint was right, a fucking meltdown.

At least, that's what it looks like to Tony.

The skinny little shit is holding his head in his big ass hands, visibly agitated and restless.

He hasn't _done_ anything yet, no outbursts of violence, no sudden explosions of magic.

The waitress has been by twice, and both those times, Loki has somehow managed to look up at her and smile politely, exchanging a few words before the woman scurried away again.

But something clearly isn't _right_ , either.

There's the rocking back and forth, for one thing. Never a good sign, in Tony's not so limited experience. The twisting of long, thin fingers in inky black, unkempt locks.

Oh, and Loki's also wearing the same non-dress he was earlier. Grey sweat pants, no socks, and a thin t-shirt, the god's skinny, pasty white arms sticking out of the sleeves like a couple of spaghetti strings.

Tony still can't believe the bastard is strong enough to crush Doom's armor in his bare hands, the way he watched him do.

He doesn't look like he can weight more than 150, 160 pounds, tops.

Compared to Thor, who's so fucking _built_ you can believe it when he picks up a car like it weighs as much as a feather, or crushes six inch metal walls in like they were made of paper, Loki looks like some starved little kid, albeit one with exceptional height.

From here, Tony can see the guy's naked feet are dirty, like he's been walking around without shoes for a long while now.

Yeah, this is all awful.

"Soooo, what's the plan Cap?" He asks after several minutes of tension filled and silent observation.

Loki never even once picks up the drink he's apparently ordered, just continuing to sit there gripping his head like he's suffering the world's worst migraine.

"We need to form a perimeter," Steve starts. "in case things get out of hand."

"I don't know what you're talking about Cap." Tony says glibly. "That's never going to happen."

"Shut up Stark." Natasha says, and Tony knows better than to argue.

"Tony, Clint, Natasha, I want you to fall out. Stand point and keep watch. If things start to seem like they're going south, I need you to act quickly to contain the situation. Get everybody out if you think it's necessary."

"This is insane." Tony says at the same moment Clint let's loose a litany of curse words.

"Why didn't we bring Bruce again?" Tony goes on after a moment.

"Because the Hulk would add so much calm to an already uncertain situation." Natasha deadpans.

"At least the Hulk might be able to take the scrawny bastard." Tony argues petulantly.

"I don't think so." Natasha replies, unfazed.

And that's when Tony's heart sinks right into the pit of his stomach.

Natasha sounds... scared. Like, actually scared.

They are so, so screwed.

/

Steve knows he's been made before he's even made it halfway to where Loki is sitting, the god looking up and directly at him.

Steve isn't stupid enough to assume then that Loki isn't aware of the rest of his team, and he feels his stomach churn unpleasantly, fear uncurling inside him.

If Loki panics, it would endanger the lives of everyone around them. Innocent people who would have no way of defending themselves.

The god is looking at him intently now, eyes sharp and too knowing, but he doesn't make a move beyond that, and Steve puts his hands up, palms out, praying that Loki understands the gesture.

With each step closer, Steve feels more and more wary, the fear sharp. Like he's approaching some viciously dangerous predator. But still, Loki makes no move, his eyes never leaving the Captain, until Steve is standing only a few feet away, coming to a stop, hands still raised.

Loki is leaned back in his flimsy, metal chair now, staring up at the Captain, his expression unreadable. Steve can't help but notice this close just how haggard the god's appearance is. He looks wane and much too thin, dark circles under his eyes, marring his otherwise incredibly youthful face.

Steve is so used to seeing Loki decked out in full armor, it never really occurred to him before just how... well, how _small_ he is.

He's tall, for sure. Almost as tall as Thor, certainly two or three inches taller than Steve himself. But the Captain had never realized just how much bulk the guy's armor actually added. He'd always had the impression that Loki was broad and physically imposing. But looking at him now, dressed so sparingly, Loki looks almost weak.

The Captain isn't going to make the mistake of assuming he _is_. Steve knows he isn't.

He swallows thickly, afraid despite himself. More for the people around them than for himself.

"... Loki." He finally starts. "Can we talk?"

Loki continues to stare back at him for long seconds, saying nothing, and Steve begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Loki's face is young, but his eyes are _old_.

Steve gets the feeling that Loki can see straight into who he is. Can see everything about him. All his strengths, all his weaknesses. All his greatest fears and hopes and dreams...

It's a struggle not to begin squirming where he stands, forcing himself to hold still.

Until, eventually, finally, Loki nods at him, gesturing elegantly to the seat opposite him, inviting Steve to sit.

Steve does so, muttering out a thank you.

"You can tell your companions they needn't stand at the ready. I intend no hostility." Loki tells him as soon as he's seated, and Steve looks up at him, seeing the god smiling faintly back at him.

"... It's just a precaution." Steve starts.

"You claim to wish only to speak, and yet your three companions now all have their weapons trained on me. Preemptive hostility is still hostility, dear Captain."

Steve looks back at Loki for long seconds then, trying to glean what it is he's really thinking. If he intends to attack the second his team relaxes. But he can't tell anything. Loki's face is a blank mask to him.

He hesitates a moment longer, before speaking into his com.

"Avengers, stand down." He says and Loki smiles brightly at him, even as he hears an explosion of confused and angry chattering inside his ear.

"Commendable Captain." Loki says in his soft and eloquent voice. "Your show of manners is appreciated."

"If you try anything," Steve starts, not particularly liking the god's mocking tone.

"If I try anything, Captain Steven Rogers, you will be dead before you can even realize I have. As will your team. You wish to talk, and yet already I have perceived two, blunt threats against my person. You will have to make up your mind as to your own intentions."

"Alright, alright." Steve puts his hands up again, an awful panic uncurling in his belly. "I'm sorry. Just... I do want to talk. That's it. We don't want any trouble."

"Then you aren't completely without wit." Loki answers coldly, and Steve realizes just how close he'd been to really pissing the god off.

 _Way to go, Rogers_ , he thinks in frustration.

"Pray, Captain, what is it you wished to speak of?" Loki prompts after a moment, and Steve notices the god's thin hands fidgeting restlessly with the paper cup holding his still untouched drink.

He's losing patience, the Captain realizes.

That's not good, for anyone involved.

"We talked to Thor." He blurts suddenly, and watches as Loki immediately stiffens, his shoulders snapping into a tense line, his hands clenching into fists. "... We know he's been visiting you. That you're living here, and that you've been more or less playing with us each time you stage an attack."

Loki regards him for long seconds then, unmoving, his eyes never blinking.

Again, Steve finds himself unable to discern what the god is thinking.

"... Well," Loki finally begins. "that took longer than expected. Did by chance my brother reveal to you the location of my dwelling?"

"No." Steve answers. "He didn't. But..."

"So Thor shows moderately fine judgment. I will assume you attempted to persuade my brother to reveal to you the place of my residence. I suggest against you trying the same with me."

"Loki, look..." Steve tries, feeling with each passing moment as though he's losing more and more control, if he ever had any to begin with. "it's a matter of security. You may not have caused any civilian deaths in the last year, but you've still be causing massive amounts of property damage, as well as serious distress and panic among the city's populace. This may be a game to you Loki, but it's anything but to the people's who's lives you're endangering."

For a moment, Loki's face goes entirely blank, his eyes growing distant, unfocused, and Steve feels his stomach drop unpleasantly an instant before the god's face twists abruptly into an angry snarl.

"I endanger _none_ of their lives!" He snaps, voice thick with rage. "Foolish mortal! You understand nothing!"

"Loki, just calm down." Steve placates urgently, seeing how truly upset Loki is. "I didn't mean..."

"Do you think me so careless!?" Loki talks right over him. "So blundering? Do you not think if I wished it, I could end the life of every pathetic, mewling man, woman and child residing in this stinking, backwater city of yours?"

Steve's own temper flares then, disgust and anger surging up into his throat and past his teeth.

"You killed hundreds when you invaded!" He nearly shouts. "Or don't you remember? Hundreds of lives lost, hundreds more ruined, all because you wanted to rule this stinking, backwater planet, as you call it!"

Loki stands abruptly, his entire frame trembling with obvious, naked rage, his eyes too bright, viciously green, his jaw clenched hard, hands fist at his sides.

"... You understand nothing." He says, and his voice is hardly a whisper. "Nothing."

There is a rushing sound then, like something cutting through the air, and quicker than Steve's eyes can follow, Loki's hand shoots up, and an instant later, the Captain sees he is holding one of Clint's arrows.

The god's eyes remain on him, boring into him with disdain and disgust equal, and Steve sees his hand shaking where it grips the arrow's shaft.

A moment later, and the thing snaps in two and Loki tosses it to the ground.

And then he smashes his fist against the table top, the thing collapsing like matchsticks to the ground, shattering into what must be a hundred pieces.

"Mother fucker!" He hears Clint's voice through the com, Tony doing the same.

There's a bright flash of green light, blinding Steve.

He throws his arms up over his head, expecting an attack, thinking, grimly, that this is it.

But then there's nothing.

No sound beyond the astonished and terrified murmurs around him, the noise of plates dropping and glasses breaking.

The sound of his team, shouting after him as they run in his direction.

When Steve looks back to where Loki had been, he sees the god is gone, his untouched drink spilled and ruined among the destroyed remains of the table.

/

 **AN: As always, huge thank you's to all my readers and/or reviewers! Hope you continue to enjoy!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

Thor felt a surge of sickening panic uncurling in his chest as he flew in the direction of Loki's apartment.

He could only pray to the Norns that his brother had returned there after the egregious blunder his comrades had made in approaching him.

Thor had been furious, unable to keep his temper entirely in check as he'd flipped the long table in their conference room, spilling all its contents as he'd bellowed loudly in rage.

He'd felt only vaguely abashed at the way his friends had flinched back and stared at him in obvious fear.

Only vaguely, for his anger still ruled him, even now.

He had chastised them thoroughly for their foolishness. Steve had attempted to explain to him the reasoning behind their actions, saying he only wanted to help, to perhaps persuade Loki to come in, to accept an offer of assistance, to help him "deal", as the Captain put it, with his troubles.

Thor had understood. He knew Steve's heart was a good one, that his intentions were good.

He even trusted in the purity of all their intentions, save perhaps Barton, who though Thor knew to be a good man, knew also to hold a vicious, if understandable, disdain for his brother.

But he had explained to Steve and the rest, when he had been able to calm himself, if only outwardly, that approaching Loki on the streets and speaking to him as they had, would lead only to his brother pulling back, and perhaps, most dangerously, acting out.

They did not know Loki as he did. They did not understand the maze of complexity and hazardous ground one tread in engaging his younger brother in simple conversation.

Loki had ever been of a most sensitive and deeply emotional nature. Perhaps, now, he was that way more than ever.

To Thor's own shame, it had taken him centuries upon centuries to realize it himself. To realize how his own, thoughtless words and actions, things he'd said and done without care, without caution, had always had a profound impact on his brother.

Thor had been a fool, believing that what did not hurt or trouble him, did not hurt or trouble his friends, could not possibly hurt or trouble Loki. And so he had thought nothing of teasing his brother, thought nothing of harassing and embarrassing him before others. Thought nothing of speaking callously, speaking even at times unkindly towards his sensitive and, for a long time, gentle brother.

By the time he had realized his folly, it had been far too late.

Centuries of abuse and bullying from the court, married to his own, unsympathetic and uncaring attitude, had pushed his brother to the limits of sanity.

What had happened to him in the void had torn asunder what little reason he might have still possessed.

And though Loki was better now, it was still painfully apparent he suffered greatly under the weight of the torments he'd endured.

His friends couldn't understand.

Loki had revealed to him in confidence the truth of what had been done, shown him the evidence, all too plainly.

All too plainly, Thor saw the scars deeper than his brother's skin, in the tears he wept and the bouts of rage and grief so powerful, there had been too many moments when Thor had truly felt frightened Loki would lose all control of his power and reduce the entirety of this realm to dust.

It had taken everything within Thor, at those moments, to calm his brother, holding onto him, no matter the danger to himself, rocking him gently, kissing his brow, his crown, telling him again and again and again that it was well. That everything would be well.

Thusly, he had not failed yet in bringing Loki back to himself, to the present, to his own safety.

Thor feared the day he might.

His friends did not know Loki's power. Did not know his own even.

If either of them wished it, they could, in the most literal sense, cause the mortal's entire world to implode in on itself.

The way would be different between them, but that was the power each of them held.

His friends did not know it.

They saw too little of Loki to realize it, and Thor had ever kept his own strength deeply in check, lest he should frighten them unnecessarily.

It takes him not long to arrive at his brother's dwelling, and he gains easy entry, Loki having relaxed the wards here for him and him alone.

"Loki." He calls out, striding past the foyer, into the first rooms. "Brother."

A surge of relief washes through him when he spots Loki, seated along the couch, in front of the moving picture box, though the feeling is short lived as he observes his brother, the way he hunches over, his arms wrapped round his middle as though he were in a great deal of pain.

"Loki," he starts again, walking cautiously forward.

"Your friends are all idiots." Loki says, and though is voice is rough and strained, Thor cannot help smiling at the mild humor in it.

"They are children." He says, coming nearer.

"Mmm." Loki replies, still staring straight ahead, even as Thor settles himself onto the couch, beside him. "Idiot children."

Thor laughs loudly then, reaching out and putting arm arm round his brother's slim shoulders, pulling him gently to his side.

"You'll find no argument from me there Loki." He says, his relief returning as he sees his brother smiling vaguely in return.

A few, long seconds pass in comfortable silence then, Loki relaxing against Thor's side, and the older god, not for the first time, thanks the Norns for returning his brother to him. For allowing him this.

It had not been easy.

For many months, Loki had refused him entry into his home at all. And when at last Thor had gained his trust enough for so small a thing, it had taken many months more before Loki had begun to open to him, and speak with him.

There had been many days in which the two of them had sat in absolute silence, Loki refusing to meet his gaze, Thor struggling not to push him, to demand answers and explanations.

Thor is grateful too for the patience he had been able to exercise during those times, for he knew, had he pushed Loki, he and his brother would never have reformed even a part of the bond they had once shared as children and young men.

One day, Loki had just begun speaking, and Thor knew not how many nights he had wept himself to sleep, with all his brother had at last revealed to him.

The horror of what he'd suffered...

It had at times felt selfish to Thor, that he should indulge his own misery so, when Loki was the one who had lived through it. When his brother was the one who must carry its burden with him for always.

But neither could Thor help it. Not when Loki had always been his charge. Not when Loki was his little brother, when Thor was meant to protect and defend him with his every and last breath. When Thor had prided himself on his prowess and strength in just that task.

He could not help his bitter tears then, when he thought of how utterly he had failed his little brother. How entirely he had let him down.

"... I suppose I've caused another tizzy among them." Loki's soft voice breaks his thoughts, and he looks to his brother, frowning. Loki still hasn't looked at him, and a familiar worry churns in the pit of Thor's stomach.

"You did nothing so terrible." He answers. "Though, I fear you may have well tipped your hand. They have an idea now of the power you wield."

"Yes," Loki says, and at last he turns, looking to Thor.

It is an effort for the older god, not to show his own distress at his brother's wasted and suffering appearance.

"And you did me no favor by attempting explanation of my actions, or revealing my residence in their city."

"I had little choice Loki." Thor counters quickly, fearful that his brother will be upset with him. "They persisted in their questioning restlessly, and it would have been to them suspicious if I had refused to speak at all."

"Aye," Loki says. "and now they will pursue me just as restlessly. I shall have to move from here, to elsewhere."

"And if you hadn't made so blatant an attempt on Doom, I would not have had to speak at all." Thor replies, feeling a surge of annoyance.

Loki huffs, turning away again and abruptly standing, pacing away from the couch.

"... I had an opportunity." He says. "I had to act."

"Loki," Thor starts, the anger going out of his voice. "what is your quarrel with Doom? How did he do you harm?"

His brother gives a sharp laugh then, shaking his head, turning back towards him.

"... You need only know I had my reasons Thor, and they were sound. Do not regard me as though I am without wits."

Thor only continues to stare back at him, unwilling to accept that for an answer, until his brother growls in obvious frustration, again turning his back.

"The impudent fool attempted to _abduct_ me, brother." He at last spits, and Thor starts, rising from his seat, his heart hammering in his chest.

"He _what_!?" He says, disbelieving.

Again, Loki laughs, starting towards the small kitchen of his apartment.

"Amusing, is it not? The mortal's greed for power at times know no bounds."

"Did he harm you?" Thor asks, alarmed, his anger beginning to build.

Loki scoffs, pulling open a cabinet and taking a box from it, hot chocolate mix, Thor sees, moving to the ice box then, removing a carton of milk.

"No." He answers, going to the stove, pulling a pan from a shelf. "The wretch is hopelessly clumsy in his technique, his magic laughably weak. It is merely the audacity displayed which begged my retaliation. No mortal will lay his hands on me and live to tell it. My actions were justified Thor. You will admit that."

Thor sighs, anger still roiling inside him as he forces himself to calm.

"Aye Loki." He starts. "I will. But you must also realize the human's have laws, and your continual breaking of them draws their attention to you. They feel obligated to intervene. They feel you a threat to their safety."

"And they would well know were my threats purposeful." Loki says, beginning to heat a pot of milk on the stove. "I only play with them."

"Of course." Thor says. "But they are frightened now Loki. They think you will..."

He pauses, watching the line of his brother's shoulders stiffen, back going rigid.

"They think I will _what_ Thor?" Loki turns, glaring at him.

And finally Thor looks away, a feeling of guilt rising up from the pit of his stomach.

Loki, of course, sees it immediately, etched across his face.

"What did you tell them Thor?" He asks, his voice suddenly harsh and accusing. "... What did you _tell them_?"

"... Little. Only little." Thor answers weakly, knowing it a useless endeavor, trying to deceive Loki.

He risks glancing to his brother, and sees Loki cock his head to the side, a look of deep displeasure lining his features, his eye vibrating dangerously.

"You told them more than that." He says, and it isn't a question. "You... you told them what I... how I am, now, how I..."

"Loki, please, do not become upset." Thor raises his hands in an attempt to placate. "I... I merely wished to make them understand. To see that you are not the mad, evil being you present yourself to be."

"And that was your right?!" Loki shoots back, his voice pitching higher. "That was your right, to reveal to them... t-to... to tell them about..."

"I told them nothing truly. Nothing in detail. I only told them you were suffering..."

"And so you assume I want their pity!? That I _need_ such?!" Loki cuts him off, harsh and quick. "You humiliate me before them! Make me appear as weak!"

"Loki, that is not..." Thor tries, seeing his brother leaning dangerously close to a loss of control.

"I told you all this in confidence." Loki goes on over him, and abruptly the anger in his voice is gone, replaced by such woeful anguish that Thor feels his own eyes stinging with sudden tears. "It was not meant... not meant for anyone else. Thor, I do not want them to _know_."

"I know." Thor says, both relief and regret taking hard hold of him. "I know Loki. I am sorry. Please. I did not mean to humiliate you. That was never my intent, and... and if you knew my friends as I do, you would know they think no less of you for what I said. They do not think you weak."

Loki's face crumples, and he turns away, his back to Thor once again, and it pains Thor so much to see the thinness of his brother. To see how very frail he looks in that moment, the blades of his shoulders poking prominently through the thin material of his short-sleeved tunic, his spine obvious.

He hasn't been taking care of himself, Thor thinks despondently. Thor hasn't been taking care of him either.

And it strikes the older god in that instant, how truly Loki needs someone to do that. Needs someone to care for him, look after him, make certain he is well and hale and whole.

Loki, these days, seems almost incapable of doing it himself.

Loki leans over onto the stove, his hands gripping the instruments edge as he shakes his head back and forth in some sort of pained denial.

"Do you think so Thor?" He asks suddenly, and his voice is quiet. "Do you think your mortal friends so different from your companions of old? Did they not laugh at me? Did they not think me weak, and pathetic and cowardly? Did they not make of me sport because I _was_ weaker than they?"

Thor turns away, tears welling in his eyes, unable to press them back now as he remembers... as he acknowledges to himself at last... at last, that, aye, his friends had been cruel. And so had he, at times. His cruelty born more from his inaction, theirs from the bluntness of their dislike, the nakedness of their disdain for Loki, who was younger than they, who would near beg at times to be allowed to join in their games, and they would tell him with near relish, no, no, no.

Thor remembers with too vivid clarity those times he had found his brother hidden away in his rooms, crying. Remembers too clearly how he had chastised Loki for it. Told him it was unbecoming a prince and a warrior to weep like a girl.

Loki had only been a child, and he had...

"I'm sorry." Loki's voice again snaps him from his thoughts, and he looks back to his brother, still bent over the stove. "I shouldn't... I'm sorry. I know you mean well Thor, it is only..."

He shakes his head, removing the pan of milk from off the stoves heater, pulling two glasses from one of the cabinets and pouring the milk into them, mixing the chocolate powder in a moment later.

He turns towards Thor, carrying the glasses over.

Thor takes the offered drink, muttering out a thank you.

"What is it you want from me brother?" Loki asks after a long moment. "What is it you want me to do?"

"Nothing." Thor shakes his head. "I want nothing from you Loki. I want only... only to help you."

"You can't." Loki says quickly.

"Loki," Thor tries, but his brother just shakes his head.

"You wish me to stop, to join you and your companions. To be a hero. Like you Thor. I cannot be. I cannot be you."

"I do not want..." Thor tries again, and again, his brother talks over him.

"You do! Thor, you _do_!" He says, his voice breaking apart, filled with pain, his eyes filling fast with tears. "Always have you told me... have you _demonstrated_ to me, if only I could be as you are, if only I could act more as you, feel more as you, _think_ more as you, all of my troubles, all of my despondences and despairs would melt away. But I cannot _be_ as you are Thor. I cannot be..."

And Loki turns suddenly away, covering his eyes with his hand, his frame growing stiff and trembling with emotion.

Shame heats Thor's face then as his brother's words sink in. Shame, for he realizes Loki is right, again.

It had never been intentional. Never a calculated or thoughtful approach, and perhaps, Thor thinks dismally, that had made it worse.

For every time he criticized and belittled his brother for behaving differently, reacting differently, feeling differently than him. For every time he accused his brother of imagining his hurts and sadness, for imagining slights, when, as Thor forced himself to look back and truly examine his memories of their lives, he was faced only with the brutal and ugly reality that Loki had never been treated well as he by the Aesir, never been treated with the same amount of respect, or love or dignity. That, in truth, Loki had oft been the target of the courtiers and noble's disdains and jests and unkind, degrading rumors.

That, before Loki had let himself fall into the void of space, before Loki had tried to... to end his own life, it had grown so terrible for him in the court that many had started simply to laugh in and speak insults to his face, rather than hide it behind his back, as once they might have.

Only now was Thor able to step back from the truth of Loki's circumstance and place it against his own. Only now was he able to see the thrice suffered agony his brother endured when his lack of regard and respect amongst his subjects was directly countered against the lavish praise and love and admiration Thor himself received.

As usual, Thor thinks then, his words have only managed to make things worse.

He's never known how to talk to Loki. How to say the right things.

And so instead, he carefully places the glass of warmed, chocolate milk onto the low table and moves towards his brother.

"I'm sorry Loki." He says, coming up behind him and wrapping his arms round Loki's thin frame. "I know, and I'm sorry."

Relief floods him when he feels Loki's dry hands gripping gently along his forearm over his brother's chest.

"I only worry for you." He says softly, and is relieved further to hear Loki chuckle lightly.

"You needn't. Thor, there is naught in this realm capable of hurting me."

"Perhaps not." Thor answers. "But what of yourself brother? I fear you treat your own life recklessly at times. You may not fear my mortal companions, but your continual attacks on their city, though they be only in jest, nonetheless put risk to your well being. I do not wish you to be as I am. I do not ask that you join me in my endeavors. Only... I wish you did not have to play this role of villain you seem determined to make everyone believe of you. Loki, you are no villain."

A heavy and long silence falls between them then, his brother saying nothing, holding worryingly still.

"... Aren't I?" He finally breathes, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

"Loki, no..." Thor answers, a feeling of urgency slipping into his tone. And he turns Loki then so that he is facing him, looking down into his brother's pain lined face. "You are _not_." Thor goes on, voice firm. "You may not know it of yourself brother, but you have in you a _good_ heart. I know you act out as you do to stave off already expected hurt."

Loki scoffs, turning his face away, tears continuing to slip silently down his gaunt cheeks.

"Please Loki," Thor persists, refusing to be put off by Loki's dismissive attitude. "I wish only for you to believe in yourself. To give yourself that chance."

"... Believe in myself?" Loki echoes back at him, voice distant and lost, his face still turned aside. "Oh Thor," he says almost silently then. "my sweet, naive brother. You wish me to believe in myself. It shows only you believe too much."

/

 **AN: Again, all my thanks to all my readers and/or reviewers! Your support means so much to me. I hope you continue to enjoy!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

"Well... this sucks." Clint starts, flopping down into his seat, folding his arms over his chest.

"You can say that again." Tony replies, picking absently at the eggs on his plate, resting his face against his open palm, elbow on the table.

The whole team, frankly, looks exhausted. Especially after being chewed out by their resident thunder god, he thinks, looking around at the group. They're supposed to be eating lunch but, none of them really seem all that interested in food at the moment.

Not a surprise, really, Tony thinks. They'd kind of been getting their assess handed to them all day today. Both mentally and physically speaking.

Mentally more so.

That... little encounter they'd had with Loki, well... that had been terrifying. Tony was the first to admit that.

The dude was clearly crazy. Like, bat-shit insane, and the fact that Cap hadn't gotten his head taken off right than and there was, honestly, a miracle.

Tony felt like he'd swallowed his own tongue when in the middle of their conversation, Thor's psychotic little brother had stood up so suddenly, gesticulating wildly.

That was before Clint had shot off an arrow and the fucker had caught it like it was nothing, snapping it in two and then shattering a metal and wood table into fucking splinters just by cracking it with his fist. That time, Tony had been fairly certain he _had_ swallowed his tongue, thinking for a moment, really believing, that Steve was going to die, and they weren't going to be able to do anything to stop it.

And then Loki had just... disappeared. Like he always did. In a flash of blinding green light, the heavy scent of pine and snow filling the air afterward.

Pine and snow. Why the hell did Loki's magic smell like pine trees and fresh fallen snow? Not that it was a bad thing, Tony thinks. It was actually an incredibly pleasant smell, just...

Weird.

Everything about Loki was weird though, wasn't it?

The little brat looked like a stiff breeze would easily knock him on his ass, and yet, Tony could sense a collective and tangible _fear_ beginning to take hold of each and every one of them.

Whatever Loki was... whatever Thor was... it was like for the first time all of them were really starting to realize that neither of them were human. Not even close.

Tony doesn't know why it's taken them so long to get that.

He guesses 'cause they looked human. Anthropomorphism and all that.

"What are we supposed to do?" Clint asks suddenly, finally seeming to give up on his food, looking up at all of them. "Seriously, dudes, what are we gonna do? We can't beat him. We can't even get near him, considering the fucker knew we were there probably before we even did. There's gotta be some way to contain him though. Some kind of technology that can, I don't know, neutralize his magic. He's too dangerous to just leave out there."

That was true, Tony thinks, mind buzzing.

He'd tried coming up with ways to neutralize magic before. Had even thought he was close, a couple times. Never tried it out on Loki before, but had Doom. All that had proved was a monumental failure. And if it didn't work on Doom, well...

But still, there had to be a way.

Tony refused to believe in "magic". He refused to believe it was some inexplicable phenomenon, that it was something science couldn't explain. Science could explain everything, if you just knew where to look and how to look.

He didn't care what Thor told them about will and innate connections to some big, magical tree thing or whatever the heck.

There had to be a way. If he could just...

Suddenly there's a loud crack in the air, a flash of blinding bright light and the smell of pine and snow and God fucking damn it, you can't be serious...

Tony blinks, and there's Loki, standing on their fucking dining table, decked out in full Asgardian regalia, and in his arms is a raging mad, trussed up, gagged, struggling uselessly Wilson fucking Fisk.

"You've been looking for this, I believe." Loki says in that super velvety voice of his.

And then he's dropping Fisk at his feet, scattering plates and cups and utensils everywhere, and in the next instant, he's gone, Fisk still hog tied and frothing at the mouth before them.

A heavy silence falls over the team as they all stare, wide eyed and disbelieving.

They'd been trying to get Fisk for months now, after the bastard had started upping his operations and branching out of Hell's Kitchen, farther and farther into the other boroughs. Only he'd had so much security around him all the time, and was so covert, it had been proving almost impossible to even get near the son of a bitch. And now...

"Okay... now he's just fucking with us." Clint says, breaking the silence.

If anyone has anything to say to that, nobody even bothers.

/

It's nearly three months later before Steve sees Loki again.

Nearly three months since Thor's little brother dropped both Victor Von Doom and Wilson Fisk at their feet within hours of each other on the same day, all without explanation of any kind. None of them had even begun to be able to explain Loki's motives in all of it.

Stranger still, since then, the god had fallen completely off of anyone's radar. Even Thor, who had seen Loki, he confessed, only once, and briefly, in that time period. He admitted that Loki had left his apartment, and Thor now didn't know where he'd gone, if he even still remained on Earth, and if so, where.

Thor was upset about that, and Steve couldn't blame him. In Thor's eyes, it had been the team which had likely forced Loki to leave and not tell his brother where he was going, and though Thor was always polite and open, it was obvious these last, several weeks that he'd closed off some, was a little more curt and brusk with all of them.

And so it is with both an odd sense of relief and wariness that Steve stops now and stares at the figure sitting at one of the reading tables about halfway across the room.

He's in the New York public library. He comes here most Friday's or Saturday's, because he doesn't care what Tony says, you can never replace an actual, physical book, and this is still how he prefers to learn.

He's got a good selection of books now that he'd just been carrying to the check out desk, when he'd just happened to glance to the side and seen him.

Loki.

That's definitely Loki, sitting by himself at one of the desks, a stack of books piled high at his elbow, one opened in front of him, which, by all appearances, he appears to be engrossed in the reading of.

So engrossed, in truth, that Steve isn't entirely sure Loki knows he's been spotted, though the captain also knows better than to assume anything when it comes to Thor's brother. He remembers all too clearly what happened the last time he thought he and his team had the drop on the god.

For several seconds then, he stands there, hesitating, uncertain of what he should do.

They're in a very public place, and the last thing he wants is to startle Loki and cause some outbreak of violence.

Oddly, nobody around Loki seems to realize who he is, nobody looking at him, or showing visible signs of discomfort or fear.

Loki himself, Steve is just now starting to notice, is dressed impeccably well, in a very expensive looking black suit, topped off with a deep green dress shirt, one that looks like it must be made of silk, and a black tie.

The god looks ridiculously good in it, Steve can't help but admire, his thin, tall frame perfect for making clothes look good, hanging on him beautifully. His hair, Steve also sees, is trimmed shorter than he remembers probably ever seeing it, the ends of it just short of brushing his shoulders, slicked back as usual.

He looks good. He looks well, in a way he decidedly hadn't the last time Steve had seen him. Though he's still painfully thin, the captain thinks. He supposes that's just the way Loki is built. His skin is shockingly white, and against the black of his hair and suit, it looks only more so, the sharp angles of his face making him look exactly as otherworldly as he actually is.

Staring at him for long seconds, the captain is again reminded of just what Loki is, and he feels a wave of nervous energy wash through him then. A discomfiting realization that the being he's looking at could destroy him and every other inhabitant of this city with hardly more than a thought.

And there he is, just sitting there, reading a book in a public library, without any seeming bad intent.

But Steve knows he can't, in good conscience, simply walk away, knowing that Loki is here.

He doesn't want to start a fight. Not even. He just... he needs to make sure everything is okay. That Loki isn't going to lose it and start killing people.

And so he takes a deep breath, and starts over slowly to where the god is sitting.

He expects halfway there for Loki to look up at him and smile knowingly, but as he continues on, the god only keeps his head down, continuing to read, until Steve is standing right in front of him, and still, Loki doesn't acknowledge his presence. Doesn't seem to know he's there at all.

And then, very suddenly, Steve sees Loki stiffen, and in an instant, before the captain can even realize what's happening, the god is on his feet and has a wickedly sharp blade presses up against Steve's jugular, his other hand holding the back of the captain's head.

Christ, Steve hadn't even seen Loki move. Hadn't seen where the knife had even come from.

"What are you doing here?" Loki hisses at him in a low, threatening voice, and Steve swallows thickly, the feel of the blade against his throat incredibly disconcerting.

So Loki hadn't realized he'd been seen. That was... strange, to say the least.

" _Answer me_." Loki again orders, his bizarrely green eyes seeming to vibrate, staring forward at Steve with an unflinching intensity. "Are there others with you?"

"No." Steve answers, proud of how steady he manages to keep his voice, despite his heart beating frantically inside his chest. "It's just me."

Loki continues to look at him with a plainly scrutinizing gaze, and Steve realizes he's trying to determine whether he'd lying or not.

Seconds seem to stretch too long before Loki apparently decides he's telling the truth, and finally, blessedly, he lets go the back of Steve's head, pulling the knife from his throat.

Steve catches a glimpse of the blade. It's one of Loki's throwing knives. One of those unbelievably sharp and perfectly balanced blades, intricately and beautifully engraved and designed. They'd probably be worth a fortune, even without people realizing where they'd come from or who they belonged to.

Loki somehow always managed to collect his knives after using them.

Steve and his team had only ever found one, once, after a skirmish with the god. The captain remembers that day, because he'd always thought it seemed like they'd caught Loki by surprise, like he hadn't been expecting them at all, and Thor's brother had lashed out at them viciously and quickly, before vanishing into thin air. He'd let loose one of his blades, right at Steve's head, and the captain had barely managed to raise his shield in time to block.

Tony, of course, had been eager and excited to get his hands on the knife, grabbing it up, wanting to analyze it.

Which he had, finding that it was made of the same stuff Thor's hammer was made out of, and also like Thor's hammer, it had been letting off some crazy energy signatures which couldn't be explained by any kind of science.

That had been before Thor had found out that Tony had taken it. When he had, he'd unceremoniously stolen it back, and, Steve realizes now, probably returned it to Loki at some point.

Pulling his eyes from the weapon, seeing the fractional smear of blood on it's edge, his blood, he realizes somewhat dizzily, he looks back up to Loki, and sees the god staring pointedly at him, his eyes hard and unhappy.

"What do you want?" Loki asks him after a moment, and there's absolutely no friendliness there. No playfulness, like seems so often the case with him.

Steve puts up his hands.

"Just to talk." He answers slowly. "I didn't follow you here. I come here most weekends, and just happened to spot you. That's the truth."

Loki stares silently at him a long moment, and God, he's _weird_ , Steve can't help but think. It's that unsettling quality again. That incredibly youthful face and absolutely ancient eyes.

And then he blinks, lifting his chin a little as though in defiance.

"Aye, I can see that." He says at last.

And then he's flopping, still somehow gracefully, back into his seat, gesturing towards the chair opposite.

"Won't you sit then, Captain?" He asks, casual, as though he hadn't just had a knife up against Steve's throat, ready to slash him wide.

Steve does his best to follow suit, nodding, saying a polite thank you, and taking a seat.

Loki is like a dangerous, wild animal, he thinks. One sign of weakness, and he might pounce.

Settling down, and Loki continues to regard him with discomforting scrutiny, that same, awful feeling like his inner most secrets are laid bare for this man to see consuming Steve, and he has to struggle again not to look away.

"You have questions, I presume." The god finally breaks the tense silence, his posture relaxing somewhat, though he still looks at Steve with too knowing eyes.

The captain gives a curt nod.

Loki raises his eyebrows as if in expectation.

"Are you still living on Earth?" Steve finally manages, pushing past his apprehension.

Loki smiles wryly at him, his eyes twinkling with obvious mischief.

"Would it make you feel more at ease to hear not?" He says instead of answering.

"Well that depends." Steve answers carefully. "If you've been here this whole time, you haven't been making much noise, which is alright in my book."

"Ah," Loki says, nodding. "so there are conditions."

"Yes." Steve replies quickly. "There has to be. It's my duty to protect this city and its people."

Again, Loki nods, and Steve is secretly relieved that the god seems more stable this time out than the last time they met.

"Indeed." Loki starts. "And you are an honorable man, Captain Steven Rogers. You do your duty well."

"I try." Steve says, trying to keep his breathing relaxed. Loki may seem more calm this time, but from everything he's observed of Thor's little brother, he knows Loki is anything but predictable, and prone to serious mood swings.

A long moment of silence falls between them then, and Loki's focus seems to fade abruptly away, his eyes growing distant as they slip from Steve's face, looking somewhere beyond him, seemingly at nothing.

The captain can feel himself tense, worry uncurling in the pit of his stomach. If Loki loses it, Steve knows there's no way he's going to be able to contain the situation by himself. He's got to try and keep Loki level.

"... My brother has expressed to me a desire that I join your little team. You know?" Loki suddenly starts again, still looking somewhere behind Steve, his voice quiet.

"Yeah, he... he's said something like that before." Steve answers slowly, watching the god with close regard. Watching for any sign of trouble.

He doesn't know what the hell he'd do if he saw it.

Loki smiles then, the expression bizarrely fond, almost sad.

"He wishes me a hero." He says, voice even softer. "As himself."

Steve has no idea where this is going, whether he should be concerned or not.

"Well, you were off to a pretty good start by bringing us Fisk and helping to get Doom." He says.

Loki's eyes snap back to him suddenly, sharp and focused.

"Doom was not for your benefit." He says, voice edged with something dangerous.

"I know." Steve says back quickly. "Still, you helped us catch him."

"And you believe that qualifies me to join your ragtag band of would-be heroes?" Loki snaps back, clear agitation in his voice now.

"I don't know." Steve says, his hands clenching to fists in his lap. He needs to get this conversation back under control. "That's probably a question you'd be better off answering. Why'd you bring us Fisk?"

"Idle amusement." Loki answers fast, looking away and waving a lazy hand.

"Well you're pretty good at catching bad guys." Steve answers, watching the god closely. "And you're one hell of a fighter."

Loki looks back at him, side-eying him with a weary expression. He doesn't trust what he's saying, Steve thinks worriedly.

"Am I not one of your... bad guys?" Loki says after a long pause.

This is it, Steve thinks. This is where he has to be careful. He's right on the edge, and he knows it.

"... I'm not so sure." The captain says after a moment, feeling himself tense even as the words leave his lips.

Loki stares back at him with a completely unreadable expression then, Steve's heart pounding harder against his ribs with uncertain anticipation.

And then, suddenly, Loki throws his head back and gives a sharp bark of laughter.

"Oh, you do amuse me Captain." The god says after a moment, grinning widely, and he looks so much like a boy then. Like some tall little kid.

A few seconds more, and he seems to sober, standing abruptly from his seat.

"To answer your question," he starts. "aye, I reside still on this realm. And you may rest most easy Steven Rogers, for I intend no harm to it. At least not for the moment."

And then he's gone. Just... gone. No flash of light, no whoosh of air.

Only the slight scent of snow and pine needles filling Steve's senses to tell him Loki had been there at all.

Glancing to the still opened book on the table, the captain reaches out, flipping it closed to its cover, reading "A Tale of Two Cities" emblazoned on the front.

Something about that makes Steve feel warm inside.

Makes his heart hurt too.

He doesn't even know why.

/

 **AN: Thanks to all my reader and/or reviewers, as always!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

Loki waits until his brother's friends have gone, off to engage in some other, trivial battle, before teleporting into their tower.

He cannot understand why Thor continues to bother with such petty, unworthy fair. His mortal companions perhaps find challenge in the pitiful array of foes to constantly dog them, but Loki knows his brother could dispatch all such antagonists with laughable ease. Knows too Thor cannot find satisfaction in such effortless battle. Thor had always needed an enemy to, in the least, present a reasonable match.

Too easily defeated, and his brother had always fallen into a sullen and angry mood. He would drink then. Get himself well into his cups. And Thor, as kind and generous as he was, when drunk, grew equally so mean.

Often, Loki recalls. Thor, after having drunk himself into such a state, had found his greatest relief in targeting his younger brother. At times simple verbal assaults, and Loki could still hear Thor's harsh and bitter voice as he derided him for his weakness, his frailty. Or simply his hard and scornful laughter, finding jest and amusement in Loki's oddities, his ability's in, what Thor sneeringly called _reliance on_ , magic, or his unnatural and wasteful interest in books and studies. Worst of all, and at times, still, Loki finds his face heating with humiliation at the memories, when his brother's friends would share in his drunkenness, and each would encourage the other in their loud and public shaming of him, the five of them all together at feasts, refusing to leave him alone, whipping the other guests into hysteria, until Loki had had little choice but to remove himself entirely.

That had always been the least consequence of Thor's foul moods.

With too many cups of ale, Thor's temper had always turned violent, and on more occasions than Loki could readily number, his brother had found and cornered him, drunkenly insisting the two of them go out to the training rings to spar. Loki, foolishly, had always refused, his own pride and anger and disgust getting in the way of reason, and Thor had never failed, in his offense at being denied, to simply pummel Loki then and there.

His brother, of course, never recalled his violence towards him the following morning, and when he would ask Loki what had happened, seeing his bruised and cut up face, Loki would lie, and tell him he had received the damage in the training rings, practicing with other warriors, or that the contusions were a result of a spell gone awry. Thor always believed him.

To this day, he knew nothing of the truth.

But, Loki supposes, since Thor's brash and brutal youth, his brother had found a tempered calm which before he had lacked, and he no longer drowned his disappointment in drink as he once had. If he felt dissatisfied with fighting alongside his mortal companions, he showed nothing of it.

Well then for the humans. They might all have perished at Thor's hands by now, had his brother continued to allow his boredom to hold such sway over him.

Irritated, Loki pushes the thoughts from his mind, beginning instead to make an exploration of the room he's found himself in. The strategy room, Loki believes, where the Avengers meet and receive their orders before being deployed to deal with whatever threat they must.

He isn't present more than a few moments before he hears Stark's voice in the wall address him, as predicted.

"Mr. Odinson, you do not have the authorization to be here." It says, and Loki smiles. Curious little machine. He can hear the unease underneath it's otherwise placid tones. That would be the failure of its protocols, he thinks. Stark had programmed the thing with some manner of technology, designed, Loki knows, to neutralize his magic. That, of course, had failed. Loki had felt it the moment he'd let himself in, trying pitifully to work against him, to keep him out. A simple thought had been all that was required to render the attack vain.

He begins moving about the room, examining its various features and contents.

"Mr. Odinson," the voice begins again, more urgently. "if you do not remove yourself from the premises, I have been ordered to take whatever action necessary to render you harmless."

"I see." Loki answers back, bending to examine one of the mortal's computers. Stark's technology is, as ever, impressive. For their kind, anyway. Loki has found his Starkphone rather addictive, to his moderate embarrassment.

"The threat is not an idle one, Mr. Odinson." The voice continues.

"Of course. I should think not." Loki replies, bringing the computer out of its rest mode, beginning to work his way into the Avengers central data base.

"Mr. Odinson," the voice says, an edge of clear warning in its tone. "you are not authorized access to classified information. If you persist..."

"Oh, it's just a bit of fun." Loki says dismissively, already having found his way into the databases mainframe, blowing past Stark's "firewalls". He laughs to himself as he begins rearranging and misplacing bits of information. Particularly amusing, he thinks, to rewrite each of their personal files. These mortals have little sense of grandeur, no sense of scale, everything always so straight forward and plain. How was one to learn of their heroic deeds, when they had no songs sung of them? No poems? Well, Loki had always had a great gift for story telling, and he would happily amend such a travesty. Their superior's would most certainly be pleased, he's sure.

"Last warning," the voice tells him ominously, and Loki only laughs, continuing on.

He hears and scents it simultaneously, some manner of gas filtering in through the vents in the room. Doubtless intended to render him unconscious, or some such.

Loki pays it little heed, continuing in his mischief, even when the gas builds so thick in the space it threatens to obscure his vision.

"Is this an attack then?" He finally asks the voice in the wall, growing, after a time, bored, moving from the computer.

"It is meant to subdue you." The voice answers.

"Mmm." Loki hums, studying an entirely ugly painting hung on one of the walls. "Rather ineffective, it would appear."

"It would appear." The voice says.

Loki waves a hand through the thickening cloud hanging in the air, cutting lazy patterns through it.

"Can you feel the weight of the water in the gas, voice?" He asks.

There is a moment of hesitation, and then it answers.

"It is comprised of precisely 75% water, yes." It says.

Again, Loki hums, nodding his head, before he twists his hands round the smoke.

Gradually he calls all the gas closer towards him, until it sits in a contained and formed sphere above his upturned palms. It pulls easily together for him, its molecules shifting and changing, growing more dense, until his fingers are pushing through liquid. Denser still, until he holds a large and jagged crystal in his hands.

He drops it, letting it shatter along the wooden floor.

"There." He says merrily. "Much better."

There is a pause from the voice in the wall as Loki continues his exploration through the room, rifling through Stark's various toys and oddities lying about.

"What is your intention here?" The voice finally asks, sounding almost resigned.

Loki has found what appears to be some manner of sight seeing contraption, evidently designed to improve ones eyesight, to make any point of focus appear nearer. He holds it up to his eyes, standing beside the floor to ceiling glass windows encompassing the room and looking out over the expanse of the city.

The effect is blurring and dizzying, everything appearing as nothing more than a smear of shapeless color, and he pulls the device away, shaking his head and blinking.

He's read extensively on human anatomy and has discovered that, like their physical strength, they also are encumbered with particularly weak senses, nearly every other species of animal in this realm dwarfing their abilities.

If the extent to which this contraption enhances ones sight is any indication, than Loki supposes they must also have abysmally bad eyesight. He shakes his head, turning from the windows and replacing the sight seers back where he found them.

"I'm sorry. You asked me a question?" He says to the voice.

"What is your intention here?" The voice goes on, impatience seeping into its tone.

"My intention?" Loki questions absently.

"Yes. Your intention. I must inform you, Mr. Odinson, that I have alerted Sir and his teammates as to your presence here, and they are, as we speak, on their way to return."

"Oh, my." Loki says, finally moving towards one of the many seats lining the long, glass topped table in the rooms center. "I tremble, truly."

He lets himself fall into the chair, leaning back far enough to prop his legs up on the tabletop, reclining with his hands against the back of his neck.

"You have yet to answer my question." The voice says dryly.

"My intention..." Loki drawls in return. "I have little sense of it myself. Only..." he pauses, thinking back to the week before, when the Captain had found him, somehow, unawares in this city's public library.

Loki had been, he would admit only to himself, shocked by the Captain's presence, and the mortal had been lucky indeed that he hadn't, in his surprise, cleaved the Captain's head from his shoulders.

Though truly, Loki should have known to be more careful. It had ever been thus for him, that when absorbed in fine literature, his guard was at its most vulnerable.

Still, after his initial and violent reaction, he had been intrigued.

Captain Steven Rogers was unlike his teammates. In some respects, he reminded Loki of Thor, though only very superficially. Golden hair like the sun, handsome, heroic, the strength of his arm greater than any of his peers.

In others though, he was so wholly different than his brother. Loki could see readily, even before he had delved into the information gathered on each of the men and women that made up the team of "The Avengers", that the Captain had in him a great well of doubt and, as the great catalyst for that doubt, the fear of failure.

That wasn't like Thor at all.

Further separating them was Steven Rogers at times shifting perceptions. His ability to see past a rigid and unyielding sense of right and wrong, and to reassess his own beliefs. Thor was learning to do that, but the Captain, Loki could tell, had always been thus.

His teammates, particularly Stark, teased him over his reputation as the dutiful, unquestioning soldier, but that was Rogers at all. A good soldier, yes, but willing and readily so to disobey orders if he thought it the proper course.

It was what, Loki supposes, allowed the Captain to question the depth of his depravity and corruption. To give him a modicum of belief in believing him capable of good. Foolishly, perhaps, Loki thinks. Steven Rogers knew him not at all, and if he did, doubtless he would glimpse more clearly than ever the hideous monster lying beneath Loki's well kept exterior, literally and figuratively speaking.

Still, there was something...

Loki had scarcely allowed himself to admit it to himself, but the Captain's willingness, ill-advised though it may be, to see him as more than another of their villains... it had stirred something deep in the pit of his stomach. Something too close to longing. Something which, if Loki was being perfectly honest with himself, he had been feeling more and more with each new encounter with Thor's band of merry mortals. An unwanted and at times nauseating reminder of days long since past, when Loki had foolishly imagined he might still belong, might still have his place among Thor and his friends. Might still have a place among those who he once called his family...

Foolish, he knew, for he never belonged among any of them at all.

And why was he here then?

Was he really so pathetic still, so pitiful, that he would persist in his absurd and childish illusions, longing for something which he knew he could never have? Pining after it like some mulling cur?

He told himself it was simple curiosity. A desire to see if the noble Captain was really so true to his word as he appeared to be. So honest.

Other moments, he told himself it was a wish to see Thor, having, these last, many weeks gone without doing so.

Long since had Loki ceased denying to himself his wish to maintain some form of relationship with his brother, though he kept Thor still at a distance, seeing him only sparingly, and for never longer than a few hours at a time.

Loki knows that any, deeply buried dream of somehow being... accepted back into the life he once knew, of ever again endeavoring towards others seeing him as some sort of... hero... were fantastical and absurd. He wouldn't even try. He would not debase himself so.

In truth, he could not say what brought him here now. What end he had in his mind. Only that he felt impulsively a desire to be here, and so here he was.

"You were saying, Mr. Odinson?" The voice prompts when he fails to finish his answer, and Loki smiles lazily up at the ceiling.

"I wish to see what they will do." He gives in response. "Your brave and dutiful guardians."

"I should think they will react with agitation. You are, after all, a wanted and highly dangerous war criminal."

"Mmm." Loki hums, letting his eyes slip closed. "That I most certainly am."

/

"What are we gonna do when we get there?" Tony's insistent, annoying voice breaks the silence of the quinjet again, and Steve just barely manages not to roll his eyes. "What if he's still there? JARVIS, buddy, he still there?"

"Yes Sir. Mr. Odinson remains waiting in the conference room on the 20th floor of the tower."

"Fuck." Tony swears, and Steve grinds his teeth together.

"We'll deal with it when we get there." He says, trying to stay as calm as possible.

"He could incinerate us all before we get a single word in edgewise." Tony complains miserably.

"I know that." Steve says, his own voice edged in frustration and uncertainty.

"Tony, shut up." Bruce says now.

Him and Tony exchange a few words more, but Steve isn't really paying attention.

He's too busy worrying about the fact that his run in with Loki the other week, which he'd failed on purpose to tell his team about, might have caused... whatever this was.

If he'd completely misjudged Loki's behavior and intentions, if Loki had in fact taken some kind of offense, or Steve had in some way insulted him, he might be there at the tower, waiting, just as Tony feared, to simply kill each of them.

Steve suddenly wishes he had told Thor about his encounter with Loki. If he had, the god likely wouldn't have gone back to Asgard just yesterday, for who knew how long this time. In fact, thinking on it, Steve realizes Loki had probably been waiting for just that opportunity, to confront the Avengers with Thor gone, since Thor was the only one who could actually stop Loki if he meant them harm.

Damn...

"JARVIS," he starts, trying to keep his cool. "what is Loki doing? Has he caused any damage?"

"Nothing beyond what I have already informed you of Captain Rogers. He is currently sitting at the conference table, and has not spoken to me at all for the past ten minutes. He appears relaxed, though I cannot say what that indicates of his intentions."

"Alright." Steve answers. "Let us know if he does anything which might be cause for concern. We'll be at the tower in less than forty minutes."

"Very good Captain Rogers. I will inform you of any notable developments in the interim."

"Thanks JARVIS." Steve says, before leaning back against the wall.

He's just got to stay calm. With any luck, Loki didn't actually mean to attack them. Though Steve can't think of what other reason Thor's brother would have for coming to their headquarters's again after all this time. He was beginning to realize, though, that trying to predict or understand Loki's behavior was pretty much a lost cause.

He could only pray this didn't end in disaster, with him being the catalyst for it all.

/

It's ridiculous, but Steve can't help the feeling of relief which washes through him when the teams at last arrives back at the tower, and the building isn't on fire or otherwise demolished in any, perceivable way.

He wishes Thor were with them.

"Where's he at Jarv?" Tony asks, the helmet of his suit peeling back as they pile out of the jet and onto the roof of the tower.

"Conference room, 20th floor Sir." JARVIS replies smoothly.

"Any change in behavior?" Steve asks, holding his shield close to his chest.

"None Captain Rogers. He remains seated at the desk and appears presently to be asleep."

"What? Are you serious?" Bruce chimes in.

"His vital readings would indicate unconsciousness." JARVIS continues. "And he has not moved at all in the last twenty eight minutes, nor spoken."

"Well that's good." Clint says, his bow already drawn. "If he's sleeping, couldn't we just... you know..."

"It could be a trick." Steve points out. "A way to make us come in with our guard down."

"Why would he even need to do that?" Natasha adds. "Even with our guards up and us at our best, if he wanted to, he could just kill us all."

Steve feels his jaw tighten. He doesn't like being reminded of their basic helplessness in this situation.

"And if he was interested in killing us all, he would have done it already, by your logic." Steve says back, a little testy.

"Point taken." Natasha concedes, seeming unbothered.

Steve tells them to form a defensive line then and to proceed with caution as they enter the tower and begin making their way to Loki's location. He can feel his pulse rate kicking up as they come nearer, his heart thumping loudly in his head by the time the reach outside the entrance to the conference room.

He gives the single to wait, asking JARVIS in as quiet a voice as he's able if there's any change, and again the AI replies in the negative.

It's now or never then, Steve thinks. If Loki's going to attack them, there isn't much any of them are going to be able to do, except maybe Bruce. Even then...

Steve doesn't want to get any of his team killed.

"Behind me." He orders. "I go first."

He doesn't know what he's expecting when he finally forces himself to move through the door. An attack of some kind? An explosion of impossible magic or physical strength slamming into his chest, knocking him back and down as easily as if he were a rag doll. A knife thrown with unreal precision to slice straight through his throat.

None of that happens.

Steve moves into the conference room, and there Loki is, leaned way back in one of the chair's, his feet propped up on the table, hands folded over his stomach, his head lolled to the side, eyes closed, jaw slack, lips slightly parted. Unmoving. His chest rises and falls in an even, shallow pattern.

He looks, for all the world, to be truly asleep.

Steve finds himself gaping for long seconds, frozen by his own surprise, until he feels a sharp tap along his shoulder, and he turns and sees Natasha glaring at him, the rest of the team standing ready.

"Orders Cap?" Clint asks in a hushed voice.

Steve hesitates, uncertain.

If Loki really is passed out, then this might be their opportunity to actually capture him and bring him in, unlikely as that seems. But then... Steve remembers his conversation with Loki at the library. Remembers the way Loki had nearly taken his head off with one of his knives when he's been taken off guard. Remembers the then polite, almost friendly demeanor of the god when he'd finally relaxed, when he'd realized he wasn't under attack. Remembers Loki asking him if he was one of their enemy's, and Steve telling him he wasn't sure...

All this is running through is mind when he sees out of his periphery a sudden movement, and when he turns, he sees Tony moving past the rest of them, making a beeline for Loki. He's holding something in one of his gauntleted hands, something Steve doesn't at all recognize, but which look like some sort of high tech handcuffs.

"Tony, wait..." Steve snaps sharply when his mind finally catches up to what he's seeing and he realizes what's happening.

Tony ignores him, and in the next moment, he's by Loki's side, the god still unresponsive, and before Steve can say another word, Tony is clamping one of the cuffs roughly over Loki's wrist, a set of blue and green lights along the outer edge instantly flaring up, a loud whirring sound emitting into the air.

Loki's eyes snap open, wild and shocked, his head whirling to the side and staring up at Tony, who stares back at him, seemingly frozen.

In the next instant, Loki's face twists into an enraged snarl, and a moment later, he rips his arm free of Tony's mechanical grasp as though it were nothing, one of the cuffs dangling from his wrist as he's on his feet in a flash and backing away.

Steve watches him with growing dread as he sees the god suddenly stumble, his face lining in abrupt and obvious pain, eyes flashing down to the cuff round his wrist.

"What..." he starts, voice choked and straining, before it cuts off with a sharp gasp.

Tony seems then to recover himself, and he flashes a grin at Loki.

"Pretty cool, huh?" He starts. "I've been working on those for a few months now. It took me a while to unravel the energy signature you put out, but I cracked it eventually and came up with those baby's. They emit an energy designed to counter your own. So it should make it impossible for you to just poof, disappear like you always do, or, you know, attack us with magic or whatever you want to call it. I can't believe I actually got a chance to get em' on you though. That was the biggest problem. Not that they wouldn't work, but getting close enough to you to actually snap em' on. I thought about having Clint shoot you with an arrow, but your reflexes are so damn fast, I knew it probably wouldn't work."

"Tony." Steve starts sharply, horrified. "You didn't say anything about this."

Tony turns to look at him, shrugging.

"I'm telling you now. I didn't want to say anything until I'd gotten the chance to use them."

Steve opens his mouth to reply, to tell him that he isn't supposed to test any new technology on Avengers missions without passing it along to the rest of them first, but he's stopped by a strangled, pained noise, and his eyes shoot to Loki, watching in shocked horror as the god drops suddenly to one knee, his free hand lifting, shaking fingers wrapping round the metal encasing his wrist.

The moment he touches it, green light flaring at the tips of his fingers, the light dies away, swallowed by a blue surge, like an electric shock, racing up Loki's arm.

The god _screams_ , an agonized sound, his other knee hitting the floor.

Steve watches as Loki's eyes widen, filled abruptly with thick tears, before suddenly they roll back in his head, nothing but the whites showing.

And then he collapses completely, his thin body crumpling to the floor like a pile of broken twigs. His mouth hangs open, his perfectly straight teeth stained with blood and dripping steadily from his nose, body convulsing sporadically.

The teams stands there some seconds, staring, shocked.

Steve thinks at first it must be some sort of joke. But as the seconds tick past and Loki continues lying there, incapacitated and clearly hurt, he realizes it's anything but.

His head snaps up, looking to Tony, a furious rage bursting at once inside his chest.

Tony is staring at Loki, his own expression one of utter disbelief.

"... It wasn't supposed to do that." He finally says, sounding distant.

"Get it off him." Steve orders, voice hard and angry.

Tony turns to him, blinking.

"What?" He asks.

"Get it off him. Get those damned things off him." Steve repeats, louder.

"Cap..." Clint starts in. "we've got him. You can't just..."

"Get those things _off him_ Tony." Steve ignores Clint, taking a step towards Tony.

"Are you crazy?" Tony asks. "We've been trying to capture Loki forever. We finally get him and you want me to let him go?"

"Whatever those things are, they're _hurting_ him." Steve snarls, losing patience rapidly. "I don't care for how long we've been trying to bring him. This isn't part of what we do. I'm ordering you, as team leader, to take the God damned thing _off of him_! _Right now Tony_!"

"Jesus, alright!" Tony finally concedes, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Hold your horses."

Steve watches as Tony moves towards Loki's still convulsing body, blood and thick, ropy saliva now forming at the corners of the god's mouth.

He feels sick. Oh Christ, what if they've... what if they've killed him?

Tony reaches down, pressing in some sort of code along the cuffs connecting chain. There's a loud beep, and the metal round Loki's limp wrist opens up, slipping free.

Loki's pale white skin beneath is charred black with some kind of hideous burn, and Steve sucks in a sharp breath, Bruce to his left cursing.

"Shit..." Tony mutters, staring at the damage.

"What did you do?" Steve demands, coming to stand closer, kneeling down and reaching out, taking Loki's arm up carefully. Up close the burn is even worse, scorched red and blistered beneath the blackened skin. Steve swallows, his mouth abruptly dry as he reaches out his other hand, pressing his fingers against the pulse point in Loki's neck, relief flooding through him as he feels it beating, faint though it seems.

"I didn't..." Tony starts, defensive. "I mean, I've been working on the cuffs for a while. I thought... I was working with tech from one of the Chitauri guns from the invasion, and..."

"Wait, you what?" Steve cuts him off, anger rising up in his throat again. "Where did you even get it? All that stuff's supposed to be locked down."

"You know me Cap. When I want something, I get it." Tony answers unhelpfully. "Look, I didn't think it would actually _work_. I was able to harness the energy from one of those guns and then I modified it into these handcuffs here. I'd been testing it before on one of Loki's throwing knives that he'd left behind the last time we fought him. Whatever magic he's got worked into those things, it just... it was like it drained right up when I put it through the field. So I thought, why not give it a try. I didn't... I didn't know it would _hurt_ him."

"Well it _did_." Steve says, voice hard and flat.

"You sound pretty choked up about this Steve." Clint says then, sounding pissed. "He's still breathin', ain't he?"

"That's not the point." Steve snaps back. "We don't... we don't know what we're dealing with here. Thor told us that Loki's magic is as vital to him as oxygen is to us, or blood. We don't know what it might do to him to tamper with it. But whatever this has done, it's bad."

"Let me see." Bruce is there now, kneeling next to Steve, and Steve let's go of Loki's wrist, making room.

Bruce has a pen light, and he reaches out, pulling Loki's closed lids apart and shining the beam into his eye. There's no reaction beyond the expected dilation, Loki remaining unconscious, though the convulsions have thankfully stopped.

Bruce feels his pulse next, timing it on his watch, before turning his attention to the burn along his wrist.

"I've never seen any weapon of ours able to do this kind of damage to him." Bruce says absently, sounding distracted.

"Well it's not technically our tech." Tony says. "It's Chitauri."

"He's really out." Bruce goes on as if he hasn't heard Tony. "I don't like his pulse. It's super thready and his breathing's too shallow."

"What do we do?" Steve asks, a feeling of urgency building in his gut.

"... I don't know." Bruce answers after a moment. "If this were anyone else, I would say we have to bring him to the infirmary."

"Then we'll bring him to the infirmary." Steve says, not even hesitating.

"Steve..." Natasha starts.

"He's _hurt_ Nat." Steve cuts her off, angry. "We need to help him. This is our fault."

"And if he wakes up and is pissed as hell?" Natasha counters, unfazed. "What then?"

"Then we'll deal with it." Steve tells her, already moving, bending down and beginning to gather Loki in his arms. It's shocking to him as he lifts the god just how fragile he feels. Like skin and bones and little more.

"These cuffs are the only way we have of containing him." Tony says. "We don't have a holding cell that'll work yet."

"He needs medical attention." Steve says. "And those _things_ are what's caused it. We aren't putting them back on him."

"You're out of your mind Steve." Clint says. "When he wakes up, he's gonna be pissed, and he's probably going to kill us all. We need to restrain him somehow."

"Then work on a way." Steve orders. "But we aren't putting those cuffs back on him. That's final."

There's more mutterings, more protests. But Steve hardly hears them. This is their fault.

Loki came to see them, for what reason, Steve still doesn't know. But if he'd been relaxed enough to fall _asleep_ waiting for them, then he knows enough to know it wasn't with the intention to attack.

Instead they'd done that. Done it to an unconscious, defenseless man. One who was now seemingly gravely injured.

There was no excuse.

No excuse at all.

/

 **AN: Thank you once again to all of my readers! Your continued support means so much!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

 _There lies before him the vast and seemingly endless expanse of Asgard's verdant forests, lush with green and life and the hushed, steady sound of it all. And on his face lies the warmth of her three suns._

 _Loki tilts his head back, closing his eyes against the brightness, the scent of the fresh, pure air filling his nose and his lungs as he breathes it in._

 _And soon he feels the wet warmth slipping from the corners of his eyes, running down across his temples and into his hair, and he forces his lips into a smile, bitter and like the taste of ash on his tongue, because he knows this isn't_ real _. Knows now that it never is._

 _This, above all else, above all of the physical agonies and deprivations and humiliations, is, Loki thinks, the cruelest torture of all. These visions the Titan forces into mind. These terrible dreams which, upon waking, the loss of leaves Loki gasping in desperation and drowning in his crushed hope and useless longing._

 _When the Titan makes him remember how much he misses him home and family, and reminds him once more he shall never see either, not ever again._

 _It is the waking from these dreams into the reality of his existence which, more than anything, makes Loki long for death._

 _But the Titan would never grant him that release. Would never show him such kindness._

" _Please..." he breathes, when he can take no more. When the promise of his home becomes too real in his mind. "let me go..."_

 _For once the Titan does, the dream shattering like fine dust swept off in the wind, the reality crashing down to take its place around him._

 _He wakes up naked and shivering and on his back, his arms and legs spread wide and held down by bonds too strong for him to break, the ground hard and cold beneath him._

 _He blinks up rapidly at a pitch, starless sky, the warmth of his tears slipping across his temples, and when he tries to swallow against the dryness of his throat, he feels the hard, unyielding tube they've forced all the way down it. Feels and tastes then the sudden rush of mushed, thick past which explodes out of it, filling his throat rapidly, and he's forced to try and swallow as quickly as he can lest the paste choke him to death._

 _This is how they keep him alive._

 _He cannot sustain it, swallowing and swallowing, the paste coming faster than he can force it down, and as he begins to choke and gag, his body spasming and jerking uselessly against the bonds in some animal fear to save himself, his magic lying dead inside him, he feels the hands on him, the familiar hands of the Other, palms pressed out flat beneath his sternum and moving lower, spreading over his now bloating stomach and lower still, past his navel and down between..._

 _Loki tries to scream, tries to fight, but all that slips past the tube in his throat is a strangled, pathetic whimper and the bonds yield not at all._

 _His eyes slip closed, and he lets go._

 _When he's on the very edge of escape, they rip the tube from his throat and pound his chest until he breathes again._

 _And then they beat him. Beat him until his bones shatter and his world becomes naught but pain._

 _Beat him until he feels nothing at all._

Steve is watching Dr. Soloman as the physician examines Loki, checking his heart, and feeling along his abdomen now, the hospital gown they'd dressed him in pulled down from the shoulders and pooling at the god's painfully thin waist. Steve keeps staring at Loki's body, unable to reconcile how strong he knows Thor's brother is with how almost pitifully weak he looks. He's shockingly skinny. Made worse, Steve thinks, by the hideous scarring crisscrossing across the god's back and legs. Thor hadn't been lying. Hadn't even been exaggerating. Loki had clearly been tortured by someone, somehow.

They have Loki strapped to a hospital bed, Adamantium bonds holding him down by the wrists, arms, ankles and legs, another, thicker band across his chest.

Steve hates it. Had been against it from the start. But Fury had overridden his authority, and the rest of the team had put their support in with the director, arguing that they needed to take _some_ measure of precaution for when Loki woke up. _If_ Loki woke up, Steve had wanted to growl. It had been two days since the incident in the conference room, and Loki remained unconscious, his condition seeming to barely improve, though the burn on his wrist had at least begun to fade.

Still, this seemed cruel to Steve.

They'd hurt Loki enough to land him in the hospital, and they then follow that up with strapping him down using bonds made out of the most indestructible metal on Earth. Loki was strong as hell, but even he wouldn't be able to bust out of those things. Not through sheer physical force.

Steve has little doubt Loki could break free with the force of his magic. But then, that's what has Steve most upset right now. They've been monitoring the energy signature Loki puts out, the frequency of his magic, and it's been, to say the least, erratic and spotty, fading in and out like a weakening pulse, sometimes surging and then tapering out to almost nonexistence.

When that happens, Loki's heart rate slows with it until it seems to stop almost completely, his breath rattling in and out of his chest with weak, sick sounding rasps, the heart rate monitor edging frighteningly close to a flat line.

Whatever those cuffs of Tony's did, whatever they did to Loki's magic, it almost killed him. Still might, Steve thinks with dismal grief. The doctor's here say Loki's fallen into some sort of comatose state and that they aren't sure when or even if he'll wake up.

It's nothing short of utter shock then, when, as Dr. Soloman is pressing down along the center of Loki's abdomen, Steve hears a sudden and sharp gasp, and his attention flicks to Loki's face, seeing the god's eyes snapped wide open and filled with naked, undiluted terror.

Dr. Soloman seems just as surprised, straightening from where he'd been bent over Loki, staring at him in disbelief.

They're given only a moment to realize what's happened before Loki's head turns, his gaze landing on both of them.

Abruptly Loki tries to sit up, only to be snapped immediately back down by the restraints, and instant, violent panic takes hold.

The god begins to twist and struggle viciously against the bonds, his teeth grinding together and bared in a twisted, feral looking snarl, a half-choked scream tearing from his throat.

The bonds won't budge for anything though, and as Loki seems to realize it, seems to realize he's _trapped_ , his panic only increases tenfold, his efforts redoubling until it looks like he's going to break his own arms and legs trying to get out.

"Loki, Loki _stop_!" Steve steps closer, even with his heart racing frantically and sickeningly inside his chest, fear flooding into his veins. "Stop, you're going to hurt yourself!"

Loki replies only with a strangled, broken cry, seeming not to have heard Steve at all.

And then it happens too fast for Steve to even realize what it is until a moment after, as the Adamantium bonds just... dissolve, seeming to vanish entirely as the bright glare of Loki's magic engulfs them.

Loki screams with it, like he's in pain, and in a moment, he's sitting up and lashing out, too fast for Steve's eyes to follow.

His open hand hits Dr. Soloman, glancing off the physician's shoulder, and the man goes flying back through the air as though he weighed nothing at all, crashing into a wall twenty feet away and falling in an unconscious heap on the floor.

Steve barely has a moment to look back in horror and concern for the doctor before Loki lashes out at him too, and the Captain just barely manages to dodge out of the way of the blow, ducking down as Loki's arm cuts through the air above him.

Steve braces then for another attack, certain it's coming, but instead Loki turns from him, movement frantic and desperate as he throws himself from the bed, only to go crashing to his knees the moment his feet touch the floor. Again, frantically, the god tries pushing himself to his feet, the hospital gown slipping free completely and leaving him naked as he stumbles and falls across the room, until he reaches the opposite wall, sliding along it until his back is pressed into a corner.

He looks insane as he stares back at Steve with wide, vibrating eyes, his entire frame trembling pronouncedly as he lifts his hands in an obvious defensive posture. Another, bright flash of green and gold, and a moment later, Loki is holding one of his throwing knives between his fingers. Only he's shaking so hard the weapon slips from his grasp and goes clattering to the floor.

Loki doesn't bother bending to pick it up, only calling another one to his hand.

He legs are trembling, and Steve is certain the god's knees are going to give out any moment, his impossibly white skin covered in a thick sheen of sweat, chest rising and falling in a rapid, shallow pattern.

Steve swallows against a suddenly dry mouth, straightening slowly, his hands held up in front of him, palms facing out. He keeps his eyes on Loki, trying his best to look nonthreatening. The way Loki is looking back at him, Steve isn't even certain the god recognizes him right now.

"Loki..." he starts, trying to keep his voice calm and soft. "it's me. Steve Rogers. You know me."

Loki's eyes flash, a spark of green fire swallowing his blown pupils a moment before receding again. He snarls, pushing himself farther into the corner.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Steve tries, keeping still.

This is beyond dangerous, he thinks. Like being trapped in a tiny room with an angry tiger.

Loki's lips move, his jaw working like he's trying to say something, but no words come, and a moment later, Steve sees his right knee buckle, and he goes crashing to the floor again, the knife once more dropping from his fingers.

He panics, struggling to push himself to his feet once more, only for his knees to go out from under him again.

There's another, now blinding flash of white filling the space. Steve blinks rapidly against it, half expecting some sort of attack, or for his vision to come too late in clearing only to find Loki gone. Only when the halo of white at last washes away, he sees Loki still there, curled in on himself now, hands over his head, fingers twisting in his hair.

Steve watches him for a long moment, waiting to see what will happen, if Loki will do anything else, or say something. But nothing comes, Loki only continuing to sit there as if he were trying to hide away from the world, shaking almost violently.

Steve dares to take a single step closer, torn. He wants to go check on Dr. Soloman and make sure he's alright, but he's fearful if he makes a wrong move, he'll set Loki off in some way. And then there's Loki's own condition, which is looking increasingly worse.

"Loki..." He starts carefully.

"You betray me Captain." Loki suddenly speaks, his voice hardly more than a whisper, gravely and rasping raw from his throat.

Steve stops, staring.

So Loki did realize where he was. Did recognize him.

"Loki," he tries again, worry churning harder in his gut.

"More the fool am I..." Loki continues, talking over him. "that I would allow myself the position at all."

"Loki, I didn't..." Steve tries, an unexpected pang of hurt uncurling in his chest at the thought of Loki believing it was him who'd done this. "I didn't know about what Tony was doing. He didn't tell me. He didn't tell any of us."

There comes a choked, coughing wheeze from the god, and Steve realizes a moment later that Loki is laughing.

"What matters it?" He asks in the same, ruined voice. "You have me Captain. Is that not what you have long desired? In your clumsy and thoughtless mortal hands, you have stumbled upon a means of bringing me to heel. I should say I am impressed. You lured me well Captain. You..." he stammers to a stop, a sharp, pained gasp slipping past his lips.

Steve starts forward without thinking, moving around the bed, hands still held up.

"Are you alright?" He asks, knowing it's an absurd question even as it's leaving his lips.

Loki says nothing for long seconds, his hands grasping harder at his hair, knuckles whitening.

"... My magic..." he starts, then stops again, breathing heavily, voice trembling. "it ebbs l-low within me. It is as... as if for you your lungs were filled with water. Should my magic deplete entirely, the result would... w-would be the same."

Steve stares back at him, horror choking his breath for a moment as the god's words register.

"... Is that going to happen?" He asks hesitantly, dreading the answer.

"Should you... should you replace the bonds used b-before, then aye. They were designed to d-drain... drain my power quickly. Stark knows nothing of it, understands not how to t-temper their power."

Steve straightens then, finally having something to latch onto.

"We aren't putting those things back on you." He says firmly.

That gets Loki to finally glance up at him, and Steve feels his stomach twist at the tears standing out clearly in the god's eyes. His expression is one of plain disbelief.

"... You cannot hold me without the use of Stark's contraption." He says flatly after a moment, his face closing off suddenly. "My magic will return to me."

"That's good." Steve answers. "That's what I was hoping."

Loki looks back at him then, tears still slipping silently down his face, his eyes filled with confusion now, and suspicion. He's watching Steve, assessing whether he's telling the truth or not, the Captain thinks. Steve looks back. He's got nothing to hide in this.

Finally Loki shifts, the movement stiff and awkward.

"... You would let me go?" He asks, his voice cautious, disbelieving still.

Steve hesitates, thinking. If he let Loki go, he would be in a world of trouble.

He could lie and say the god had escaped, and likely be believed. But that would be irresponsible, and dangerous. He didn't know what Loki was going to do, especially now. But it was true that, without Tony's cuffs, they couldn't hold him. He'd escaped out of the Adamantium bonds like it was nothing, and in an incredibly weakened state at that.

But no, there was no way Steve was going to allow those cuffs to be put back on Loki. Not for anything. If letting him go was irresponsible for not knowing what the god would do, it was doubly so, knowing to put the cuffs on Loki again would likely kill him.

"... I was hoping you'd stay." Steve at last starts. Immediately he sees Loki stiffen, pressing harder against the wall. "I don't want to force you." Steve quickly adds, keeping his hands held up. "I just... I was hoping you'd choose to stay."

Loki's expression is purely incredulous.

"Why would I do that?" He asks bluntly.

"... I don't know." Steve admits after a moment. "Just... you came to the tower on your own. I thought there might be a reason."

Loki continues to stare up at him, saying nothing for long seconds, his gaze uncomfortably scrutinizing. He's shivering, and Steve wonders if he's cold, or feverish, or just frightened.

The idea of Loki being afraid of any of them seems absurd.

At last the god turns his eyes away.

"... It matters not, whatever my reasons may have been." He says, almost too softly to hear. "I only thought..." he trails off, shaking his head.

"What?" Steve asks when he realizes Loki isn't going to finish. "What did you think?"

"... It matters not." Loki repeats.

"No, it does matter." Steve argues. "Loki, you came to us for a reason, and I don't think it was to attack us."

"And what would you know of my intentions?" Loki growls suddenly, and abruptly he's trying again to push himself to his feet, legs trembling beneath him. Somehow, this time, he manages to keep his footing, though it looks like it won't be for long.

"Probably not a lot." Steve admits, keeping still. "But I do know what you've said to me, and I know that you've helped me and my team out more than once now when you didn't have to do anything at all. That you could have killed all of us without breaking a sweat at any time you wanted, and you haven't."

Loki watches him back, holding himself up against the wall, looking sick and wary.

He says nothing, and Steve swallows, deciding to take a chance.

"I need to check on the man you hit." He says carefully. "I'm just going to move over here."

He gestures behind him, taking a slow step back. Loki watches him like some predatory animal, his eyes following Steve's every movement, but he does nothing beyond that as Steve at last makes his way to Dr. Soloman, bending down carefully and checking the man's pulse. A wave of relief washes through him to feel it strong and steady beneath his fingers, and giving Dr. Soloman a cursory examination, Steve finds nothing more wrong with him than a badly bruised, likely broken shoulder, and probably a concussion from getting knock unconscious. He's lucky, Steve thinks. It could have been so much worse.

Turning his attention back towards Loki, he sees the god still watching him, a cautious expression now across his face.

"Have I killed him?" He asks quietly, sounding bizarrely concerned.

Steve shakes his head.

"No. Just a broken shoulder and maybe a concussion. I still need to get him help though."

Loki blinks, before abruptly turning his face down. He seems to realize for the first time his own state of undress, and in a way which Steve would almost call embarrassed, he crosses his arms over himself.

"... I should like to go Captain." He says weakly. "Will you permit me, or am I to be your prisoner?"

Steve purses his lips, again hesitating.

"... It's my duty to keep you here if I can." He finally says. "I probably can't stop you from leaving, but if you attempt it, I'm going to have to try. I don't want to. I don't want to hurt you Loki."

Loki scoffs, a vicious smirk curling his lips as he looks back at Steve.

"Of course." He says.

Steve tenses, hearing the hostility in the god's voice.

"I don't." The Captain repeats, meaning it. "Loki, I'm sorry this happened. If... if you choose to stay, I can try and help you. We can work something out."

"Help me?" Loki starts. "You cannot help me Captain. There is no help for what I am."

"... I don't believe that." Steve tries, standing slowly. "I don't believe you're as bad as you pretend to be."

A sharp, bitter laugh escapes Loki's throat then.

"Then you are a fool Captain." He says flatly. He shakes his head. "I will not remain here of my own volition."

"Please Loki," Steve pleads. "I don't want to do this with you. If... if you try to leave, I'm going to have to try and stop you. My team is going to have to try."

"Of course." Loki answers flatly. "You and your shield companions are welcome to try."

"You can't teleport?" Steve asks, though it's more a statement. He already knows the answer. If Loki could, he would have been gone already.

"Exemplary deductive skills, as always Captain." Loki sneers at him, standing straighter against the wall.

It's all the warning Steve gets before Loki pushes himself off with more speed than the Captain thought him now capable of, coming at him directly and without hesitation.

Steve barely has time to get into a defensive posture before the god is on him. Even fast as he is, Steve can see Loki is drastically slowed, and he's able to fairly easily duck under the first blow, leaning back just barely out of reach of the second. He isn't so lucky on the third, Loki slamming the heel of his palm into Steve's chest.

It's like getting rammed head on by a ten inch thick steel beam. Steve goes flying, his breath immediately ripped from his lungs as he crashes into the wall hard enough to crush in the metal paneling and support beams behind.

The initial burst of pain is followed by instant panic, Steve struggling to pick himself up to his hands and knees. He sputters, trying desperately to draw air back into his lungs as he lifts his hand, turning on the comm and trying to speak into it.

He half expects Loki to attack him while he's down, to finish the job, but instead the god is already making for the room's exit. It's locked down, needing to be opened through an electronic code, but Steve doesn't expect that to even slow Loki down, and it doesn't.

Loki slams into the door shoulder first, the metal groaning loudly as it dents inward. Another single punch to the same spot, and the entire thing crumples in, falling to the floor.

Loki is through it an instant after, and Steve fights to get to his feet, sucking in sharply again and starting into the comm.

"A-Avengers assemble. Lok... Loki has escaped c-containment. Repeat. Loki has escaped containment, and is currently making his way North through the low... lower medical wing, likely headed towards the North-East exit."

"I told ya Cap." Tony's voice answers first. "God damn it."

"Are you hurt?" Natasha next, sounding like she's running.

"I'm alright." Steve says, finally making it to his feet and starting after Loki. "Is Bruce listening?"

"I'm here." Bruce's voice comes through, sounding weary and frightened.

"Bruce, you're the only one who can stop him. We need the Hulk."

"The other guy isn't going to be able to do much against Loki's magic." Bruce answers.

"His magic is on the fritz." Steve answers, pausing in the hallway and trying to determine which direction Loki must have gone in. "He's not operating at full power. The Hulk's the only one strong enough to handle him like this, even still. Just... can the Hulk control his strength? I don't want Loki hurt. He's already really sick after what Tony's cuffs did."

"... I can try." Bruce says after a moment.

"What do you mean his magic is on the fritz?" Natasha again. "Is he able to use it at all?"

"... Yeah, a little." Steve answers, going right, up a set of stairs. "He dissolved his bonds, but he wasn't able to teleport out. He got past me just through physical strength. We still need to be careful."

"He dissolved his bonds? As in, the Adamantium bonds?" Tony starts, the disbelief clear in his voice. "What does that even mean?"

"It means they disappeared." Steve answers. "Listen, I only want Tony and Bruce engaging. Clint, Natasha, I need you to go to the infirmary and help Dr. Soloman. He's been knocked unconscious by Loki, likely with a concussion and suffering a broken shoulder."

"Well this is fucking great." Clint spits.

"Just do what I say." Steve says, feeling his heart beat painfully in his chest.

"What about Wanda?" Natasha asks. "She could help probably."

"Negative." Steve answers. "I don't want her dealing with Loki yet."

He turns the corner at the top of the stairs and freezes, shocked as he sees Loki down the hallway, leaning against the wall, breathing heavily and clearly exhausted.

Steve pauses, swallowing thickly.

If he could just talk Loki down... convince him that he doesn't need to do this...

He's barely given a chance to think about his next course of action before Loki's head snaps up in his direction. An instant after, the god takes off again, disappearing up another set of stairs.

"Damn it..." Steve breathes, taking off after him. "Stairwell 4A," he relays into his com. "fifth floor. He's headed up, Northeast exit."

He makes it to the stairs in time to see Loki turning another corner, up another flight.

"Loki, wait!" Steve calls out to him, unsurprised when he goes ignored.

It's as he's turning the same corner, Loki just reaching the topmost step, he sees the exit beside it burst open, Tony flying through, suited up.

Loki stumbles back, his back hitting the hand railing behind him.

Tony doesn't bother with any of his usual quips, raising his hands, threatening a repulsor blast.

"Give it up Loki." He says. "This'll be a lot easier on you if you just surrender now."

Loki doesn't respond except to call another knife to his hand, lobbing the thing with deadly accuracy between one of the suits few open seams between the shoulder and arm, the blade lodging there nearly to the hilt. Steve sees a green spark explode between the joint, and suddenly Tony's right arm collapses down with the dead weight of his suit.

"Son of a..." Tony curses. And in the next instant, he lets loose a repulsor blast, the beam hitting Loki dead center, crushing him back against the wall.

Steve moves, dread filling his gut, watching as Tony steps forward and reaches out, grabbing hold of Loki's right wrist and yanking him up off the stairs.

Loki growls viciously, struggling against Tony's hold, Tony fighting to pin the god back against the wall, his disadvantage immediately obvious as Loki reaches out with his free hand, his long, thin fingers curling over Tony's face plate, crushing inwards.

There's the awful sound of grinding, groaning metal, and Steve sees Tony flail, trying to pull out of Loki's grip.

"Tony!" Steve cries, sprinting as fast as he's able up the last few steps and throwing himself with all his strength against Loki, knocking the god back, off of Tony.

The both of them tumble, skidding across the floor, Steve on top. In the chaotic struggle, he sees Tony's face plate still gripped in Loki's hand, realizing belatedly that the god has tore it completely off.

"Loki!" The Captain tries, useless though it likely is as he grapples, trying to grab hold of Loki's wrists.

He gets Loki's heel jammed into his stomach for his trouble, the kick once more tearing the breath from his lungs and sending him flying back, halfway down the steps. He lands with an awful, painful jolt against his back, a half choked gasp slipping past his teeth.

It's as he's slowly picking himself back up, he hears it. The familiar, ear splitting roar of the Hulk, followed a moment later by the sound of rending metal and shattering debris on the landing above him. He looks up, watching as the Hulk comes tearing through the wall like it's paper, and Loki stumbles back from where he's picking himself up off the floor, straight into Tony.

Tony scrambles to grab hold of the god, hooking his one still operating arm underneath Loki's left and trying to yank him off his feet. Loki hisses in rage, his eyes wide in seeming panic, fixed on the Hulk.

"Come on buttercup." Tony says. "You're outnumbered and outgunned at the moment. Just stay down."

A feral sounding growl rips from Loki's throat in response, and he reaches up, closing his hand over Tony's and _squeezing_.

Tony screams, the sound one of obvious and awful pain, and Steve's eyes go wide, realizing that Loki is crushing his hand.

He tries again to move as Tony loses his grip entirely on Loki, the god rushing forward out of it.

The Hulk swipes at him, trying to intercept, and Loki somehow manages to make him miss, ducking under the giant hand and sliding between the Hulk's legs, rolling up onto his feet and starting up another flight of stairs.

The Hulk roars in anger, spinning around and reaching again for Loki. This time, the god isn't fast enough.

The Hulk's massive fingers wrap round Loki's left leg, yanking it violently out from under him. Loki gasps, the loss of balance causing him to fall, too fast for him to catch himself as his forehead slams hard against the ridge of one of the steps.

Steve feels his stomach twist at the sight, sucking air to call out.

"Hulk, don't!"

The Hulk doesn't seem to hear him though, dragging Loki back, down the stairs and towards him.

Loki fights to escape, twisting round in the Hulk's grip and reaching out, grasping hold of the giant hand round his leg and trying to pry it loose.

Loki looks like a child in the Hulk's hold, the powerful fingers loosening not at all with the god's efforts.

Loki's face twists in panic and plain, naked fear a moment, something Steve isn't at all used to seeing, and suddenly he throws his hand out, up towards the Hulk's face, a bright burst of green and gold shooting from the tips of the god's fingers, a cloud of it exploding in the Hulk's face.

It's a distraction, Steve realizes a moment later, a temporary way to blind as the Hulk blinks rapidly and shakes his head, trying to clear his vision. It works enough for his grip to loosen somewhat and Loki manages to break free, scrambling back up the steps and trying to turn and run.

It doesn't buy him much time at all though, as the Hulk is again reaching out a moment later, once more grasping hold of Loki, now by the shoulder and dragging him back.

Loki screams, furious and desperate, twisting madly in the Hulk's grip. He lashes out, punching the Hulk full in the face. A blow which would have shattered the bone structure of anyone else it landed on, Steve thinks dismally, but which does nothing but seem to irritate the Hulk further as he reaches out with his other hand, catching hold of Loki's fist and enveloping it in his own.

Loki howls, an inarticulate, half-strangled sound as he lashes out again with his other fist, the Hulk catching it before it even lands this time, having the god by both hands now. He spreads Loki's arms wide, locking them at the elbows and lifting him up. Loki struggles a moment, trying frantically to kick at the Hulk, but he isn't in range at all. The Hulk sneers at him, suddenly tightening his grip, and Loki gasps, a sharp, half garbled cry slipping from his throat, sliding abruptly into a broken, choked scream, his face crumpling in obvious, terrible pain.

The Hulk is crushing his hands.

"NO!" Steve shouts, dashing forward, towards the both of them. "HULK, NO! Let him go!"

The Hulk, again, doesn't seem to hear him, or care, continuing to put more and more pressure on Loki's trapped hands and wrists, until Loki's scream begins to sputter, slipping into a stifled moan of agonized pain, his entire frame seeming to slump in the Hulk's grip.

"BRUCE!" Steve screams, latching onto the Hulk's arm, knowing already there's no way he's going to be able to physically pull him off. "Bruce, Jesus Christ, you're gonna kill him! PLEASE!"

And then the wall above them explodes inward, drywall and wood and metal and dust shattering down above them, clogging the air. Steve looks up, startled and frantic, and he sees Thor standing there, hammer held aloft, sparks of lightening crawling all over its head, his face twisted into a mask of rage more furious than anything Steve has seen on him before, his eyes glowing with an unreal, unnatural blueness.

Steve's hands slip loose from the Hulk's forearm, instinctively stepping back as his eyes stay fixed on Loki's brother.

"Thor..." he begins, voice thin.

That's all he gets out before Thor moves, so fast, Steve doesn't even see him. Only knows the next instant he's on the Hulk, his hammer swinging round in a broad arc to smash into the Hulk's face, an explosion of light coming with the impact, so bright it whites out the entire corridor for a moment. There's a loud and awful crunch filling the air, and when the flash of white recedes, the Hulk is on his back across the stair's landing, staring up in a pure and confused daze at the ceiling above, unmoving, eyes out of focus.

Steve blinks, shock washing through him, followed by abrupt and frightening understanding, and he turns, looking up in the other direction.

He sees Thor there, knelt down and cradling Loki against his broad chest, thick palm pressed protectively against the side of Loki's head, the younger god's face buried and hiding against Thor's shoulder. Loki curls against him, his hands plainly mangled as he holds them together against his own chest, his entire frame shaking viciously hard, though he makes no sound at all.

Thor scowls down at them in pure disdain.

"Fools." He spits, a clap of thunder booming overhead, so loud the entire building seems to rattle with it. "You should not have touched him."

"Thor, wait, please..." Steve tries. But it's too late. Before he can get another word out, the god has taken his brother up, holding him tight against him as he swings his hammer round with blinding speed.

A moment later, he's gone, him and Loki disappearing through a freshly made hole running through every floor above, all the way out the top of the tower and into the bright blue sky.

/

 **AN: Once again, massive thank you's to all my readers and/or reviewers! If you have a chance, please leave me a review, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

Halfway to the apartment Thor keeps separately from his comrades, Loki begins to sob, and Thor holds him tighter, trying better to shield him from the cutting, sharp winds and air.

"We're almost there." He tells his brother, pressing his lips to Loki's crown, kissing him firmly. "Only hold on. We're almost there."

Still, those few minutes seem to stretch endlessly before they at last reach the place, Thor landing on the apartment's small adjoining balcony and quickly letting himself and Loki inside.

He carries his brother to his living room couch, setting him as gently down as he's able.

Loki's sobs have only worsened in the minutes since they began, and Thor can see him struggling desperately to control himself, failing entirely as his body shudders and trembles with the violence of it, deep, gasping breaths rattling from his throat, thick, hot tears running freely down his pale and exhausted face. He won't look at Thor, his bloodshot eyes skittering away every time the elder god attempts to catch his gaze. His crushed hands move directionless, grasping at the air, and suddenly he lifts them, trying to curl his fingers into his hair. Thor reaches out quickly, grasping his forearms gently and pulling his hands down.

"Loki, no..." he says softly. "you'll hurt yourself."

Loki doesn't even try to pull out of his grip, only sitting there, looking lost, his chest rising and falling in an erratic, rapid pattern, tears still running down his gaunt cheeks.

Rage burns like fire in Thor's chest as his gaze studies Loki's ruined hands. The delicate bones beneath thin skin are all broken, he thinks, awful swelling and bruising already showing along his knuckles, his beautiful fingers bent awkwardly and at unnatural angles. Thor is taken by a sudden, nearly overpowering desire to go back to the tower and crush the Hulk's skull in. To lay every one of his wretched, wicked shield companion's to waste for daring... _daring_ to touch his little brother as they have. For hurting him as they have.

He hadn't known until he'd returned to Asgard's city proper, having been away for the past three days, visiting some of the realms outermost villages and negotiating trade and supply routes with their heads. Arriving back at the palace, he'd shortly after been summoned by Heimdall, who had informed him that his friends had somehow managed to subdue Loki and take him prisoner. That in the doing, they had severely drained his magic from him, and that his brother lay close to death for it, his power sitting dangerously low in his core.

How they had done it, Thor knows not. They should not have had such power, such abilities as to render his brother so vulnerable to them. Thor intends to find out, and to eliminate whatever means they have concocted or obtained. No mortal should have such power, he thinks.

For now, though, his concern is his brother, and tending to him. His hands are the least of it. If Loki's magic ebbs any lower, it could very much be fatal. Thor has to make sure he expends no more of his power. Not until it begins to build again.

"... I'm sorry..." Loki whispers brokenly. "I'm sorry, I'm s-such a fool..."

"Shhh..." Thor hushes him gently, laying his hands down at his sides. "Do not say that. This is not your fault."

"I was deceived. For my... my pathetic weakness. My pathetic and useless longing... You must think me... think me p-pitiful..."

"No." Thor says firmly, trying to control his anger. "I think no such thing Loki. This is through no fault of your own. I know not what led to them felling you, but you cannot blame yourself. I have... I have explained to them the intrinsic nature of your magic, explained that it is not a thing separate from you. I explained to them the dangers of interfering with that power, and yet still they behaved as ignorant children in this. And that is what they are, blindly charging forward without thought to consequence." Thor pauses, smiling sadly. "Much as I once behaved, and you many times tried to show me of myself. With them as with me, it is you Loki who pays the price of that ignorance and arrogance."

Loki looks up at him, blinking, fresh tears falling from his eyes, saying nothing. He looks so young, confusion and fear clouding his brilliantly green eyes, his face etched in naked pain, and Thor shakes his head.

"Hold a moment brother." He says softly. "I am going to bring you clothes, and then we will tend to your hands."

Thor leaves his side reluctantly to enter his sleeping quarters and fetch a fresh pair of clothing. He hates leaving Loki by himself in moments like these, knowing his brother is in need of comfort and reassurance, knowing how Loki's sensitive nature often wreaks havoc on his too sharp mind.

He doesn't really have any clothing that will fit his undersized brother, so he does the best he can, picking out a pair of sweat pants with an adjustable string for the waist and a long sleeved hoodie. Loki hates these kinds of clothes, but it will have to do for now.

Coming back out into the living area, he finds Loki curled up on the couch, knees drawn to his chest and face pressed against their tops, his mangled hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Thor moves towards him quietly.

"Here Loki," he says softly. "let me help you."

He kneels down, gently pulling his brother's legs from the couch and guiding them through the legs of the sweats.

"Come on." He encourages, helping Loki to stand so he can pull the pants up to his waist. The garment tries immediately to slip off, his brother's narrow hips and rail thin waist failing at all to fill it out. Thor tightens it as best he can. Still, it's obvious Loki's probably going to have to hold the things up to keep them from coming off.

The hoodie isn't really any better, slipping off of Loki's thin shoulders and hanging off of him like a giant cloth sack. Still, it's preferable to his brother continuing to go naked, and Loki himself seems vaguely more relaxed at being covered up when Thor helps him settle back down onto the couch.

His sobs have at last subsided, though tears continue to well and fall from his eyes, silent and awful as Thor sits down fully on the floor in front of him and takes his left hand carefully in his own.

It's a mess, as is his right hand.

Thor's jaw tightens as he prods gently along the hands joints, trying his best not to cause his brother any more pain than he's already in. Still, Loki hisses and gasps softly, struggling not to flinch and pull his hand out of Thor's grasp.

"I'm sorry." Thor tells him sincerely. "I know it hurts."

Loki swallows with obvious difficulty, shaking his head.

"I'm going to have to reset the bones." Thor warns, feeling his own stomach tighten with anxiety at the prospect. "It's going to be incredibly painful."

Loki gives a stiff, jerky nod.

"... I know." He says weakly, voice a rough whisper. "I've been through this before."

Thor frowns, looking away.

Knowing how many times Loki had had his hands broken and crushed does little to make him feel better about this, memories flooding his mind of groups of angry Aesir children cornering his brother and holding him down, snapping his fingers and smashing them with rocks and the heels of their boots, revenge for some harmless prank Loki had pulled on them after endless days of their cruel and heartless bullying. Worse still, times when Loki had been captured by enemy forces and held prisoner. Tortured in ways Thor to this day had difficulty giving words to, only a reoccurring method had been to mutilate his hands for, what they called, the unnatural and dark practice of sorcery by a man.

No, it does nothing at all to ease Thor's own pain at having to watch his brother go through this again.

"Ready?" He asks, swallowing past the bile threatening at the back of his throat.

Loki gives another, stiff nod, his entire frame tensing in anticipation.

Thor nods in return, pulling in a deep breath before taking hold of his brother's pinky finger. He hesitates only a moment more before quickly snapping it back into place.

There's a loud cracking sound, and Loki's face spasms a moment with agony before he forces it back into an emotionless mask. Still, fresh tears stand out clear in his eyes, his breathing heavier.

"Are you alright?" Thor asks, worry churning in his gut.

Again, Loki nods, his moth a thin, tight line.

"... I'm fine." He chokes out, voice strained.

"Are you certain?" Thor presses, unconvinced.

"Aye, just... just get on with it." Loki breathes. He lifts his right arm and wipes at his eyes with the back of his free hand.

Thor hesitates, uncertain, until Loki snaps at him again to just do it. And so Thor does, resetting the bones in Loki's fingers, and in the joints, realigning his displaced knuckles. Near the end of it, Loki is shaking uncontrollably, heavy sweat covering his face and soaking through his clothes, and suddenly he turns, pressing his face against the cushions behind him, a half-choked sob slipping from his throat.

"Loki..." Thor starts, alarmed.

"C-can... can we stop f-for just a... just a moment?" Loki stammers, voice wheezy and tremulous with pain and exhaustion. "J-just for a moment?"

Thor's brow creases, his throat tightening.

"Oh, Loki..." he says quietly, his heart sinking. "Why did you not say so before? There is no shame in it."

Loki doesn't look at him, keeping his face pressed against the cushions, silence stretching.

"... Just... just a moment. Please?" He at last speaks, sounding as though he's pleading. As though he's afraid somehow that Thor will deny him.

Thor pauses, and for a moment, he has to look away from his brother, the sight of him at once too painful.

"Of course." He forces himself to answer. "However long you need."

/

It is hours later when Loki at last succumbs to sleep, and Thor is grateful.

The sun has long since set, casting Thor's apartment in darkness, save for the one, small table lamp he's switched on. They're in Thor's sleeping quarters, and he watches his brother now, curled up tight along his bed, face finally lax and without pain for the first time since they had arrived here. It had been a challenge convincing Loki to come and use the mattress, his younger brother insisting he was fine on the couch, that he didn't need it, that Thor should take it, that he must be tired after traveling from Asgard and all that had happened upon his arrival.

Thor had refused to hear such excuses, at last simply picking Loki up bodily and carrying him to his room, placing him down purposefully on the bed and forcing him to lie back.

Even then, it had taken hours more before Loki had been able to fall asleep, he and Thor sitting in mostly companionable silence, the soft rasp of the younger god's voice every now and then filtering through the air to tell Thor thank you, or to apologize again.

Thor had had to remove himself at one point, unable to stand it any longer, locking himself in the wash room and stifling his own sobs against his palms. He couldn't bear it. Couldn't bear to see Loki blame himself for this.

Standing now and moving quietly to his brother's still form, Thor is careful as he pulls the covers over him more fully, up to his shoulder. He watches Loki a moment then, his swollen hands curled loosely in front of his face, and Thor reaches down, brushing a lock of his ink black hair back off his forehead and behind his ear before bending and placing a soft kiss along his brother's temple.

Loki doesn't stir. Unsurprising. He's completely exhausted. Thor knows it will likely take days, perhaps even a week or more for Loki's magic to fully replenish. What little he'd had left after the Avengers had attacked him, he'd nearly used up in his attempt to escape.

Returning back to the armchair he'd set up across from the bed, Thor settles into it, continuing to watch his brother sleep, intent on spending the night with him.

It isn't long after that he begins to feel his own eyes grow heavy. Lesser time still before he fades into slumber.

/

Loki wakes with a start, and for an agonizingly long moment, he doesn't know where he is, sitting up sharply, chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breathes.

Wherever he is, it's dark, and his eyes scan round, searching frantically for anything familiar, heart beating too hard against his ribs.

His throat tightens, a wave of overpowering dizziness crashing down over his head as his eyes land suddenly on Thor, sitting there, plainly asleep, in a chair a few feet away. The relief is too much as Loki realizes he hadn't dreamed it. That Thor had truly come for him. He sags back down against the bedding, turning and pressing his face into the pillow.

He swallows with difficulty, squeezing his lids shut to try and stop the press of sudden tears in his eyes, shame choking him as he's unable to keep them from slipping free anyway.

He'd been _afraid_. Norns, he'd... he'd been afraid of a group of weak and ignorant mortals, a group of _children_ , as Thor had called them. His own weakness knew no bounds then, his own, wretched cowardice.

Memories fill his mind, insults shouted and spoken plainly, both to his face and back by children and men and women alike. Ergi. Wretch. Scum. Cur. Coward.

Loki supposes all those insults hold true to him.

He'd found in his studies of Midgard, the mortals too had insults equating the same. Faggot and queer and homo. He wonders if the Avengers were trading such insults about him now.

There had been an instant, he recalls, when he had just reached his majority, and thus been considered a man, he had been strolling through the palace grounds, enjoying the cool morning air, before it would become unbearably hot in the afternoon, as it often did in Asgard, when he had come across a group of young children, the sons and daughters of some courtiers, he knew. He had smiled at them, stopping to speak with them. Children, especially very young ones, he had found, were often more open and kinder in their manner, and he often enjoyed their company over many adults.

He remembers, though, this group of children...

They had sneered at him with all the disdain and disgust of hateful conviction, mimicking some of their parent's to perfection as they'd assaulted him with name calling, questioning boldly his right to be named a warrior of the realm, asking him if he wouldn't be better suited in joining the women in their loom work, or as one of the Queen's consorts maybe. One girl had run up to him and kicked at his shin, spitting at his feet and saying, he can hear her voice clear now as if it had happened only a moment before, "A shame you are to Odin's house. You're no prince of _mine_."

Loki had become infuriated. He'd been so _angry_ , not thinking, not thinking at all as he'd reached out and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, lifting her into the air, up to his face, his teeth bared in rage. He had wanted to make her shut up, to make all of them shut up, somehow. And so he'd done the only thing he could think to do, as the girl had screamed and kicked, trying to break free from his grasp. He'd shifted his shape. He'd made himself into the most vicious, most hideous troll he could imagine, roaring at the girl in a booming, monstrous voice that he was going to eat her and the rest of them up whole, right then and there.

The girl had frozen, he remembers, her eyes wide as dinner plates, skin suddenly bloodless. And then she had truly started to scream, her eyes filling with fat tears, her face turning red as she'd let loose at the top of her lungs, the other boys and girls joining her.

Loki had dropped her, startled, for some reason, stepping back and shifting back to his true form. But it hadn't mattered. They'd been inconsolable then, distraught, running off in a mad and frenzied fear of him. Their screams, Loki remembers, had drawn the attention of some nearby nobles, and when they'd seen who it was the children had been running from, they'd been furious themselves, confronting him and asking him what it was he'd done to them.

Loki had tried stammering out an explanation, his heart pounding and a feeling of awful guilt eating away at his insides. He hadn't actually meant to frighten them so. But the three men who had come didn't care what he had to say. They'd shoved him back against a wall, disgust lacing their voices as they'd accused him of abusing the children in some awful way. Loki had begged them to listen to him, telling them desperately that he hadn't done anything, that he'd only wanted to scare them a little so that they would be quiet, so they would leave him alone, but again, nothing he'd said had mattered.

He'd been too frightened himself to fight back then, when they'd begun smacking him around, too dumbstruck by everything, only lying there as they'd punched and kicked and spit on him, promising to tell everyone they knew of his unnatural, evil ways.

He'd been too ashamed afterward to report what had happened to anyone.

Rumors had begun quickly thereafter to circulate round the palace, stories growing more elaborate and more extreme by the day that he had physically beaten or maimed the group of children in the garden. It mattered naught that there had been no physical proof of this supposed beating, the children in question bearing no mark of any kind.

Eventually, the rumors grew so wide spread, that Loki had been called before Odin himself to answer for it.

He had barely made an effort to defend himself, he remembers. He had denied it, of course, even as he knew he would never be believed.

The flogging he'd received in punishment had hardly been the worst he'd been subjected to.

It had been his pride, and what little dignity his reputation had held to, that had been hurt the most.

Out of everyone, only Mother and Thor had shown belief in him. Had told him they knew the rumors were false.

Loki still doesn't think either of them understood how much that belief had meant to him then.

He wipes at his eyes roughly, pushing the heels of his hands against them, trying to stop the tears.

His hands still throb and ache viciously, like a hot lance through the joints and knuckles, though beyond that, there remains no damage. The true danger continues to be the barely there spark of his magic sitting low within him. A simple illusion casting might kill him presently.

He sits there some minutes more, body feeling heavy and weak, before he can no longer stand it and pushes the covers from his legs, swinging them over the side of the mattress and to the floor.

This is Thor's apartment, he remembers vaguely, and it takes him a moment to orient himself, searching for the washroom.

When he finds it, he stumbles inside, closing the door softly behind him and switching on the light, not wanting to wake his brother. He needs to be alone for a while. Just a small while.

He makes it to the vanity, and he very nearly gasps at his own reflection, his eyes dimmed to near translucency and sunken back so far the shadows round them seem to swallow them whole, his cheeks too sunken grotesquely and skin like ash.

He can bear his reflection only a moment before he turns away in disgust at his own ugliness, staggering weakly towards the shower and reaching for the faucet.

Norns, he feels sickeningly weak, his legs barely supporting him. All he wants is to lie down somewhere. But he's also filthy, skin caked in drying sweat, hair a tangled mess. He needs to wash himself.

Testing the temperature of the spray with his fingers, he then begins to peel Thor's ridiculously oversized clothes from his body, folding them and laying them neatly along the counter top as he goes.

He's just about to step into the shower stall when he feels a wave of overpowering dizziness, and abruptly his mouth fills with thick saliva.

He barely has time to turn and fall towards the toilet bowel, throwing the lid open. A moment later, he's vomiting violently into it.

Nothing comes but a frothy, murky liquid, though it lasts well over a minute. By the end, what little strength Loki had is spent entirely, and he sinks to his knees, his forehead coming to rest on the seat of the toilet.

He can't stop shaking, his eyes clamping shut to try and stop the room from spinning.

He's... perhaps he is more ill than he had initially thought himself even, he thinks dismally, nausea still churning horribly in the pit of his stomach.

He doesn't know why that should be though. He should have... should have begun to recover, in the least mildly. He knows he'd expended more of his energy than he should have, in his foolish and useless attempt to escape the Avengers. But that had been hours ago now. He should not be getting worse.

Lifting his head finally, he blinks blearily ahead, staring at his curled hands resting on the seat.

And suddenly it strikes him like a bolt of Thor's lightening, as he stares with dawning horror at his pale skin.

As he remembers that this too had happened when he'd... when the Titan had had him. How Thanos had used it as a means of torture in and of itself.

Draining his magic to near nothing. To where the slightest exertion would most certainly kill him. And in his animal fear and instinct to preserve himself, unthinking and without real choice, always, almost always, he had lost hold on the last casting he so stubbornly and desperately held to. The one casting he swore to himself each time he would not relinquish, no matter that it would end his miserable, worthless life.

When he managed to hold to that oath, the Titan would simply force the change on him, and what loathing Loki felt for himself would only harden and take more powerful hold, and he would wish more than ever that he could simply die as he watched in agonized despair the pale whiteness of his skin fade away, eaten up by spreading pale blue, and obscene, unknowable raised marking littering the surface.

He would do anything in those moment to avoid his own reflection. Anything to avoid seeing his true monster's face.

He feels suddenly like he can't breathe now, as he realizes with growing certainty that it is the glamor he holds over his true form which is draining away the almost nonexistent reserves of magic he has left in his core. As he realizes that, if he wants to recover from what has happened, he is going to need to let go that glamor.

He can't, he thinks immediately, frantically even.

He can't. Not in front of Thor. He cannot allow his brother to see... to see him like that. Norns, he cannot...

If he could just... just hold it long enough to make it back to his own shelter.

Thor would be upset, he knows that. But if it meant sparing him the horror of seeing that the one he had called his companion and friend and brother for centuries, that the one he had shared confidences with and trusted to protect his back in battle, was this disgusting, deformed and wrong creature that he was, then his brother's temporary disappointment would well be worth it.

He had only... had only to work out how best to steal away.

His own dwelling was several leagues from Thor's own, and teleporting was out of the question. He would kill himself with certainty were he to now attempt it. But to go by foot would take longer than he suspected he had in holding his glamor, and if he were to lose control of his appearance out on the streets, with the Avengers and their superiors doubtless in search of him already... it was running a terrible risk of recapture.

But blast it all, he had little choice.

He sits there a few seconds longer, trying to catch his breath, before he at last struggles to his feet, shutting the toilet lid and flushing.

He feels nauseous still, his legs trembling and weak beneath him, and he fears a moment he may again vomit, standing with his eyes closed, waiting for the feeling to pass.

Eventually it does, and he swallows back against the sour taste before finally turning again towards the shower stall. He reaches out for the faucet, intending to turn the water off, no longer having the time to wash. The spray of the warm water hits his skin, unpleasantly, even nearly painfully hot, and he pulls his hand back, surprised, glancing down at it.

For a moment, he feels the world tilt dangerously, a shot of panic tearing like a wave through him, and his vision fades for an instant to black before everything comes rushing back in.

"No..." he chokes out weakly at his stares at the Jotun blue of his skin, at the horrible raised lines and black fingernails.

He blinks at the hand, feeling suddenly, stupidly like it isn't his hand at all, though its shape remains as his, long and thin with tapered fingers. Blinks again, and feels his throat close up, stumbling backward from the shower.

No... no, no, no, this can't be... not here, not here where Thor would see, where his brother would see and... Oh, Norns, if Thor sees...

Loki can feel himself breathing too hard, too quickly, his heart beating frantically inside his chest, fear like a vice about it, as he hears Thor's voice, sneering and booming in disgust as he speaks of the monsters of Jotunheim, memories bright as the sun in his mind, his brother making sport of the giants, hunting them down in their own land to slaughter, and hanging the remains of their bones upon the walls of his rooms as trophies.

That Loki had accompanied him on those hunts, that he himself had cut down countless giants by his own hand, that he had thought little more of it than the killing of game for food... that Odin and Frigga had let him accompany Thor on those journey's, knowing full well what he actually was...

Vomit comes surging back up his throat, and Loki doesn't make it to the toilet this time, thin, watery bile spilling out onto the floor.

He wretches weakly, fresh tears stinging his eyes. It lasts nearly a minute before there's nothing at all left in his stomach to throw back up, dry heaves still rattling his pathetically weak frame, before he sinks to his side on the cold tiled floor, curling his hands over his head, pressing his face against his arms.

Maybe it would be better this way, he thinks distantly as the minutes float by and his will to run dims with each moment passed. Maybe it would be better his brother find him here like this. That Thor finally sees the grotesque, irredeemable monster he truly is. Maybe it would be better should his brother find him like this... and kill him... for then Thor would be free of him. Free of the burden of having to call him brother, or friend. Free of the stain of ugliness Loki had always cast upon his perfection, upon the light of his world.

For Loki would be free too then.

And he could think of no greater relief. To be rid of himself at last.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8:**

Thor wakes with a start, blinking blearily as his mind struggles to clear itself.

He'd been having some kind of dream, though he can't remember any of the details, only knows it's left some sick feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

He lifts his hands, rubbing the palms over his face, and when he pulls them away, he realizes it's still night outside, the room still dark also. And then he remembers Loki, and his eyes dart to the bed, his heart thudding uncomfortably when he sees his brother isn't there.

He stands abruptly, glancing at the clock along the bedside table, seeing it reads half past two in the morning. He turns, hearing the sound of running water he realizes, and relief floods through him like a wave as he sees the light on in the washroom from under the door, and realizes the running water is the shower. Loki must be in there getting cleaned up, he thinks.

Still, he should check on him, make sure there isn't anything he needs.

Stretching himself out, working out the vague soreness from having fallen asleep in a chair, he moves quietly across the room to the washroom door. He stands for a moment, and he lifts his hand, knocking gently against the wood.

"Loki?" He calls softly. "Are you in there?"

When no reply comes, Thor feels a surge of uneasiness work through his chest, his lips pursing and hand clenching over the doors knob.

"Loki." He calls again, louder.

Still, no answer comes, and Thor loses all patience, concern dictating his actions.

He pushes the door open, eyes scanning over the small space, and he feels his heart stutter to a halt in his chest, a cold horror gripping at it mercilessly as he spots, lying there on the tiled floor, naked and seemingly unconscious, the unmistakable form of a Jotun, blue skin the color of powdered snow in the moonlight, and intricate, whirling patterns running across the whole of his body. Only this Jotun has hair black as a raven's feathers, and is almost comically undersized.

It takes Thor a brief, seemingly eternal few seconds for his mind to wrench itself free from horrified confusion to realize that the Jotun is his brother.

Bile rises unwanted in his throat at the truth, and he swallows thickly against it, his heart starting again at a violent pace.

Loki... this was Loki. Even with his face turned away and hidden from him, Thor could hardly mistake the fragile, elegant lines of his brother's form. If that hadn't told him, the ravaged, hideous scarring along his back would have given it plainly away.

Only... Norns, Thor has never seen his brother like this. Never seen his...

He knew, of course. He's known for a long while now that Loki wasn't, in fact, Aesir. That he was a frost giant. He knew that fact abstractly though. Vaguely. Like some dream.

When Thor thought of the Jotnar, he always thought... he saw in his minds eye savage, vicious, ugly beasts, towering in their height, six, seven, eight meters high, with large, almost bulbous bodies and misshapen heads. Broad, flaring nostrils and fat noses, jutting brow ridges casting their soulless, blood red eyes in shadow, hairless everywhere, with smacking lips and razor sharp teeth. He saw animals, dressed in scant, course materials. Saw uncivilized, uncultured, dull witted brutes. He thought game, good for killing... good for sport. He thought...

Overwhelming disgust with himself suddenly chokes his throat as he realizes the thoughts running through his head, and he has to swallow down a cry of agonized despair as he stumbles forward into the bathroom, his mind at last registering Loki's distressed state.

"Loki!" He starts, noticing for the first time the drying puddle of vomit lying near to where his brother's face is pressed against the floor. As he draws nearer, he sees Loki's breath, shallow and weak and slow, the too sharp blades of his back lifting and falling with each intake and exhale.

"Loki!" He calls again when his brother doesn't answer, and he crouches down beside him, thoughtlessly reaching out and lying his hand against Loki's shoulder.

The burning pain is immediate, and Thor withdraws his hand with a loud hiss, his teeth clenching as he lifts his already throbbing fingers and sees with wild confusion the black, frost bitten skin across three of their pads.

His thoughts blank for a moment before he remembers abruptly that contact with the Jotnar's skin is capable of causing such injuries, even to the gods.

Remembers that Loki is one of their kind, and that his skin too can... can burn him with how cold it is.

He remembers, when they'd been children, thinking how oddly cool Loki's skin had felt, compared to his and everyone else', who were always so warm...

He hadn't realized then...

He shakes his head. He can't afford to be thinking about such things now. He glances around, spotting thick towels hanging on a nearby rack, and quickly gets to his feet, retrieving them, wrapping them round his hands and forearms and returning to Loki's side.

He reaches out, tentatively pressing his wrapped palm to his brother's shoulder, relieved when he isn't immediately burned for the effort, though he can still feel the coldness of Loki's skin radiating through the heavy material, and he knows he has to move quickly.

He doesn't know what happened, but getting Loki somewhere more comfortable is his first thought.

He pushes his hands and arms underneath his brother's unconscious form, lifting him up easily and holding him against his chest. The thin material of his own t-shirt does hardly anything to shield him from Loki's freezing skin, and he moves quickly from the bathroom, back out into the bedroom and lying Loki down along the bed.

His brother begins to shift at last, relief washing through Thor at the sight. He didn't think Loki was any more unwell than he had been. He'd just... passed out somehow, and obviously had been suffering from nausea, which was normal, given his depleted magic.

Why he'd shifted into his Jotun form, Thor had a vague idea of, though he wasn't at all certain.

He'd seen Loki nearly drained of all his magical energy before, and never seen him shift. But then, it had been Father then who had been imposing the Aesir skin on him, not Loki himself.

"Loki..." Thor says softly, crouching down, watching as his brother slowly regains consciousness.

Looking carefully at Loki's face, even in the dim lighting, he's struck by how... unchanged it is. Beyond the admittedly strange coloring of his skin and the raised, patterned lines swirling across his forehead and marking along his chin and cheeks, Loki's features remain exactly as they've always been. Thor doesn't know why that surprises him. Doesn't know why he thought... why he thought Loki would closer resemble the other frost giants.

When his brother's eyes blink blearily open, though, Thor finds himself taken aback.

He's seen countless Jotnar up close. Seen their eyes innumerable times. Knows their blood red through and through coloring well. Seeing the same in Loki's usually green eyes is... disconcerting.

He tries to push the shock from his mind though as Loki grows increasingly more cognizant with each moment passed.

"Loki..." he says again.

Loki blinks, staring confusedly at him a long, few seconds.

"... Thor?" He croaks out, voice rough and barely even a whisper.

Thor smiles weakly down at him, wishing he could reach out and cup his face, give him some physical comfort.

"I'm here." He says instead. "I found you unconscious in the washroom. It appeared as though you intended to shower."

A long moment passes without Loki giving reply, still staring at Thor as though he isn't sure he's real, and then all at once the younger man's eyes go wide and he shoots up to a sitting position, startled and terrified looking.

"Loki..." Thor starts, alarmed, reaching out.

"Don't!" Loki says sharply, scrambling back on the bed. "D-don't..."

His gaze drops, looking down at himself, a strangled, half choked cry slipping past his throat.

"Oh Norns..." he breathes brokenly. "You can't..."

"Loki, it's alright..." Thor tries, alarmed.

Loki only shakes his head in response to that, still moving back.

"Loki!" Thor half shouts when he sees his brother nearing too close to the edge of the mattress.

He reacts too late though, his brother tumbling off the edge a moment later, crashing to the floor. Thor bolts to his feet, moving to the other side of the frame quickly as he's able, finding Loki still on his back, a tangle of long limbs.

"Brother, wait..." Thor tries.

"Don't... d-don't touch me!" Loki stammers, struggling to sit up. His eyes are huge and naked with fear as he scrambles away, his back hitting the wall. He looks like a trapped animal, watching Thor with a terrified, wary gaze.

"Loki, I'm trying to _help_ you." Thor pleads, feeling himself more frightened by the moment.

"Don't look at me Thor. Don't... don't look, please..." Loki answers, voice breaking apart with tears, welling in his eyes a moment after, slipping down his face, and Thor can't help but stare in fascination as they freeze on his cheeks, crumpling away an instant later.

His fascination is broken when Loki's face crumples and turns away, his arms coming up over his head in a sad attempt to hide.

"... You can't see... you can't see me..." he cries weakly, voice muffled and almost too soft to hear.

"Loki..." Thor says, dropping down to his knees. It's a struggle not to reach out and pull his brother to him. "I see you brother. It is well, please..."

Loki only shakes his head violently.

"It isn't!" He chokes out. "Nothing is well! Don't... don't you see Thor? Don't you see what I am?"

Thor feels his heart sinking, an odd feeling of almost shame spreading within him as he realizes what Loki is asking. As he realizes why Loki is so frightened.

"Loki, I'm not going to hurt you. You're my brother. Norns, don't you know that?"

At last Loki pulls his arms from over his head, looking up at Thor with stricken, tear filled eyes.

"... Look at me Thor." He says at last, voice wavering and weak. "I'm not your brother. I'm a _frost giant_. A _beast_."

"You're my _brother_ Loki!" Thor snaps at last, the swell of anger at hearing Loki speak about himself that way dampening slightly as his brother flinches back from him.

Thor breathes in deeply, frustrated and scared at his clumsiness in dealing with these things.

"You are no beast." He starts again after a moment, softer. "Do not speak about yourself so."

Loki looks no more at ease though, his chest rising and falling in a panicked, quick pattern, his throat bobbing as he swallows visibly, eyes fixed on Thor, unblinking.

"Loki, you're ill. I need you to get back on the bed and try to calm yourself."

"I can't control it." Loki says abruptly, voice shaking.

Thor blinks, not understanding.

"... Can't control what?" He asks after a moment.

"Myself!" Loki cries, distraught. "I can't... can't control this form. Can't control what it d-does... If you touch me, you'll..."

"I know." Thor cuts him off. "Loki, I know. I already..." he trails off, not certain how to word it without sounding a fool and hurting his brother further.

And so he simply holds up his hand instead, still black with minor frostbite.

Loki gapes at his fingers, his words momentarily seeming lost to him, before his expression morphs into one of pure horror.

"... Y-you're injured." He stammers out after a moment. "I burnt you?"

"I burnt myself by being thoughtless. I found you unconscious on the floor of the washroom and reached to touch you."

"Oh, wretch that I am..." Loki moans miserably, turning away, and Thor feels a shot of panic at the reaction.

"The wound is nothing. It is healing already. Loki, you did nothing wrong. It was my blunder."

"That's hardly the point, Thor!" Loki answers desperately. "I'm... don't you see?! I destroy everything in my path! I-I-I destroy things by my very _nature_! I seek to follow your example, to-to be something more, something better than what I am, and it... it only ends in more failure, more destruction! You cannot call me your brother. You cannot, if you are to maintain your heroism, wish anything but my death!"

Thor's eyes widen as the words slip from Loki's lips, and for a moment, he is stunned into silence.

"... Loki, you... you cannot mean that. You cannot say such things to me." He finally manages, his voice weak with shock and despair.

Loki only turns his face away once more, before abruptly he begins trying to stand, his movements frail and unsteady.

Reflexively, Thor reaches out to steady him, and Loki panics at the movement, falling back hard against the wall.

Thor pulls his hands back.

"I'm sorry!" He says quickly, already chastising himself for his thoughtlessness. "I don't wish you to fall."

Loki seems barely able to stand, his legs shaking pronouncedly beneath him as he leans heavily against the wall, only half meeting Thor's gaze.

He swallows with obvious difficulty several times, before he rasps out in hardly more than a whisper.

"Will... will you let me past?"

Thor blinks, hesitating a moment.

"You aren't going to flee here?" He asks cautiously. "It isn't safe for you now."

Loki says nothing for a long moment, and Thor feels worry churn in his gut.

"Loki..."

"I j-just... just need some privacy." He at last says. "Please Thor, I just... Just for a short while."

Again, Thor hesitates. The last thing his brother needs is to be left alone to suffer from his own spiraling thoughts and weakened state. Loki had an unfortunate tendency towards self-destructive actions when he became low as he was now, and Thor was fearful that he might act foolishly, even recklessly if he were left on his own. He also worried over badgering Loki, knowing that too often had the effect of driving his brother to reckless, emotion driven behavior.

He breathes in deeply, struggling with what to do.

"I wish not to impose myself upon you brother." He starts carefully. "But I require that you remain here with me, for your safety."

"I only need a few moments, a... a few moments Thor." Loki answers despairingly, more tears slipping from his eyes and freezing on his cheeks. "Please, I'll only... only need a short while."

Thor hesitates, thinking.

"... You will remain here? Please brother." He at last answers, entreating.

Loki nods weakly, folding his arms round himself.

"I'll stay." He says.

"You aren't..." Thor stops, uncertain whether he should say what he thinks. "You will not harm yourself?" He at last forces the words out, reluctant but necessary.

Loki's eyes flash to him for a moment, frustration and anger plain in them, but the emotions seem to fade as quickly as they'd come, and he's shaking his head now, resigned and worn.

"Then I'll leave you the room Loki. If you should need me, I'll be in the living area."

For an instant, Loki looks startled, staring at him warily, like he doesn't believe Thor at all.

Thor isn't at all sure himself about the decision. He wants desperately to show Loki that he trusts him, and to do his best not to belittle or undermine him in any way. That, Thor thinks, is the last thing his brother needs.

But he can't help the deep-seated worry he feels over leaving Loki alone either.

"... I trust you Loki." He finally says. "And I love you. I care naught from whence you came or to what people you in blood belong. You are _my_ brother, and you are of the Aesir, regardless whatever else. Please, I entreat you, take heed of my words and know them to be true."

He steps back, keeping his eyes on his brother for long moments, before finally he forces himself to turn and walk from the room.

He closes the door only partly behind him, leaving it open a crack.

He _does_ trust Loki. He just... doesn't trust Loki not to hurt himself.

And so he lowers himself to the carpeted floor, leaning back against the wall beside the door frame, listening.

Guilt churns vaguely in his stomach, admitting that he's doing no less than spying on his brother, but he pushes it away, knowing he has little choice. Not if he refuses to lay low his responsibility.

He hears Loki in the other room, shifting around, grateful that he hears nothing to raise his concern or suspicion.

Only that relief comes to an abrupt halt, his heart crashing to the pit of his stomach when he hears the unmistakable sound of his brother's soft sobs, muffled and broken. Trying to hide. And as a wave washing heavy over him, memory pulls Thor down, down, down, to places he wishes now not to remember...

 _Thor turns, smirking at his brother as he struggles behind him through the thick snow drifts, lifting his legs almost comically high with each step, his breath coming heavy and obviously strained._

 _Thor crosses his arms over his chest, smirk widening into a grin._

" _Come little brother, did you not boast to me earlier of your superior tolerance to the cold? Surely now you realize your mistaken claim?"_

 _Loki scowls at him, his vivid eyes flashing, his pale skin flushed bright red with exertion._

" _I'm not_ cold _, you stupid ass." He hisses angrily, struggling forward. "It is only... this blasted_ snow _!"_

 _Loki takes another, exaggerated step, and suddenly the ground beneath him sinks deep, Loki nearly disappearing into the thick powdered snow. He gasps out, his words being choked off with the shock of the fall, and Thor erupts into laughter, doubling over._

 _He staggers over, trying to catch his breath as his brother lets loose a litany of curses._

" _Th-that, heh, that silver tongue of yours fi-finally met it's match, eh brother?" He laughs, standing at the edge of the newly formed hole, looking down at Loki floundering at its bottom, struggling to get back to his feet._

 _Loki huffs, sneering up at him, before gathering up a handful of snow and flinging it at Thor's head._

 _Thor dodges it easily enough, his laughter only growing._

 _Loki huffs, finally managing to get to his feet and pull himself out of the drift. He stands there a moment, almost violently brushing the snow off from himself._

" _You're so immature." He complains petulantly, and Thor can only smile fondly at him, reminded once more of how_ young _his brother still is. Reminded again that he is still only a child._

 _Loki had practically begged to accompany him on this journey to Jotunheim, though he knows his brother would flatly deny it. It was true all the same. Both Mother and Father had been hesitant, Mother outright refusing, both their parent's claiming Loki was still too young for such an adventure, and at first, Thor had agreed. Loki had yet to even reach his majority, and, though he had progressed magnificently in his training of late, Thor thought it would little prepare him for the task of hunting giants._

 _But as always, whenever his younger brother got a notion into his head, it was a near impossible task to dissuade him from it, and Loki had been eager, and insistent, and Thor had never been particularly adept at resisting Loki when he truly wanted something from him._

 _And so he and Loki had left Asgard without saying a word to their parents. Thor was under no illusions that they had fooled Heimdall of course. But Thor was the crown prince, and Heimdall, powerful and high ranking as he was, was always expected to bend to his command._

 _Mother and Father would be furious, no doubt, when they found out. But that was a problem best dealt with later, Thor thinks._

" _Do not be sore." Thor says, throwing an arm round Loki's thin shoulders, pulling him tight against his side. "What are older brother's for, after all, but to vex the younger?"_

" _You're hardly vexing Thor." Loki says dryly, giving Thor an ineffective shove. "Just aggressively obnoxious."_

 _Thor only laughs again, reaching out and ruffling Loki's hair, drawing another, frustrated growl from the younger god._

" _I see not why you will not allow me a simple spell which will spare us from sinking into this blasted white powder." Loki huffs again, crossing his arms. "It would be so much more practical."_

" _And what fun would be had then?" Thor asks, shaking his head. "You always want the easy way out Loki. What point is there to anything if it presents no challenge?"_

" _I said more_ practical _Thor. I... I do not always seek the easiest route. I seek only to... to be more efficient. More effective. I see not why that is so condemnable."_

" _Oh, be not so sensitive little brother." Thor answers, squeezing Loki tighter against him. "I mean only it is the challenge of the adventure that makes the effort worthy to begin with. Now, enough of this sulking. If you wish to experience your first frost giant kill, we should continue onward, before what little light we have fades."_

 _Loki grumbles and whines a scant bit more, but eventually he falls into step with Thor, saying nothing as he follows his older brother's lead, as, Thor thinks, he should._

 _/_

 _It's a small one they find._

 _Well, small by such grotesque beast's standards, in any event._

 _That's good, Thor thinks._

 _Loki is becoming stronger, but he is still woefully underdeveloped and weak of arm for an Aesir, and a battle with a full fledged frost giant would be perhaps more than he could handle at present._

 _Things considered, Loki is having a difficult enough time as it is bringing the monster down._

 _If Thor didn't know any better, he might even say Loki seemed to be pulling his attacks, purposefully missing and dampening their impact. Though that was absurd. The hideousness of the creature would be enough to make any civilized being wish to put it out of its misery._

 _It's a female. Barely ten feet tall. Its teeth will make a nice enough trophy for Loki. Thor only feels a vague disappointment that they couldn't find a male, their horns being so much nicer a souvenir._

 _Loki misses another blow with his spear, huffing out heavily with the exertion, and Thor frowns. He'd told his brother that he couldn't use his magic in this, and he had meant it. They had argued about it, of course, and Thor had pointed out that there very well could and likely would come a time when Loki would be cut off from his seidr, and in such an event, he must be able to fight his way through with his physical strength alone. Loki had seen the soundness of such an argument and had agreed, if reluctantly._

 _Though with the way his brother continues to struggle with the giant now, Thor's patience beginning to wan, he nearly wants to tell Loki to simply shoot the dumb brute with a Eldritch blast and be done with it. Either that, or simply take the thing out himself so they can go home already._

 _The giant is purely on the defensive now, its movements desperate and clumsy, from loss of blood no doubt, and really, Loki may not be the most skilled warrior, but he shouldn't be having this difficult a time._

" _For Norns sake Loki, kill it already." He shouts at last, unable to stand it any longer. "Or do you wish me to finish it off for you? A fine ode that will make in the feast halls of Asgard."_

 _He sees Loki's eyes flash towards him momentarily, a kind of obvious ambivalence in them, even a fear._

" _Loki," he starts, frustrated and confused._

" _Sh-she... she's frightened." Loki blurts, his eyes snapping back to the injured creature. "She's scared to death."_

 _Thor stares at his brother a moment, not comprehending what it is he even means._

 _When he sees Loki begin to lower his spear, he steps closer, his hand going to the handle of his own, sheathed broad sword._

" _Do not lower your guard Loki, Bor's balls!" He snaps, angry, and Loki quickly brings his weapon back up. "Of course it's frightened," he continues after a moment, struggling to reign his anger in. He's going to have to lecture his brother later about the foolishness of what he just pulled. "all animals will struggle to survive. It is naught but base animal instinct."_

 _But Loki shakes his head like he doesn't believe him at all._

" _No, she... she's really frightened Thor. She knows I'm trying to kill her. You didn't... you didn't tell me they have a language. None of the books mentioned..."_

 _Thor nearly laughs, disbelieving at Loki's obvious upset._

" _They have language the same as this realm's wild wolves have language, barking and yapping and clicking at one another. It isn't as though they_ speak _brother."_

" _You're wrong." Loki says flatly, stepping away from the giant, fallen now to it's knees out of pure exhaustion. "She speaks. Norns, how can we not know their language? The All-Speak is meant to..."_

" _Enough Loki!" Thor snaps, voice raising with a sudden, strange surge of anger. "Put the beast out of it's misery already or I swear on our father's name, I will myself. Do you really think your failure here will do well to serve your reputation among our people? They already think you strange brother..."_

 _He regrets the words immediately when he sees the naked hurt flash across Loki's pale face, plain for an eternal moment before it vanishes, a smooth, emotionless mask clamping down in it's place._

 _An apology sits on the tip of his tongue, ready to be expelled, and stubbornly he swallows it down, instead drawing his sword and stepping closer._

" _Brother, finish it off, or I will do it myself. The creature suffers more for your hesitation."_

 _Loki looks at him, stricken, his eyes over-bright with sudden tears._

 _And then he turns towards the frost giant, his face twisting in a mask of viciousness as he raises his spear and in one, swift motion, drives the tip of it clean through the beast's chest._

 _It dies almost instantly, heavy body spasming a few, long seconds before falling still and hanging limply on the shaft of Loki's weapon._

 _Thor breathes out in relief, sheathing his sword again and turning to look at Loki, words of encouragement and approval on his lips. Only the words die in his throat at the look on Loki's face, some bizarre mixture of anguish and disbelief, before, abruptly, Loki turns away, a half-strangled cry ripping from his throat before he takes off running in the opposite direction._

" _Loki!" Thor calls after him, shocked and confused. "Loki, wait!"_

Thor presses the heels of his palms into his eyes at the memory, his teeth grinding together, guilt and shame and self-disgust churning in the pit of his stomach.

He had chased after his brother, he remembers, and eventually caught up to him. Had found him huddled with his back against a large tree, knees drawn up to his chest, face buried against them.

He had been crying, sobbing, Thor recalls with piercing dismay. Recalls his own bewilderment and stupid, clumsy efforts to understand what was wrong, realizing only now how his sorry attempts had simply made it all worse.

Thinking back on his own behavior, on his own treatment and perception of the Jotnar, Norns... It was no wonder, no wonder at all why Loki now feared his seeing him thus, in his Jotun form. Why he believed... believed Thor might wish to hurt him, even kill him.

Loki had seen in that giantess an intelligence and emotion Thor and nearly all other Aesir had failed to see, and Thor had... Oh, Norns, Thor had bullied him into killing her. Had even threatened him, though at the time he had been too self-absorbed to realize that was what he had done, as much as promising to deal further damage to Loki's already broken reputation, to embarrass and humiliate him among his people, among his subjects by making him look weak and incompetent. Oh, what a blasted _fool_ he had been.

What damage, he wonders now, what cost had he dealt his brother that day, when he pushed him to... to murder one of his own kind? What must Loki have felt, when he discovered his true heritage, and thought back to all those times after, when he had regularly accompanied Thor to Jotunheim and slain again and again his own people, believing fully by then in their baseness and monstrosity? Believing it because Thor had taught him such. Because Mother and Father and all of the Aesir had taught him such, or let him believe such without protest of any kind.

And Thor yet had the audacity to wonder and worry himself over how it was Loki now thought of himself as a monster. Thought himself so terrible. Thought himself a villain.

He feels tears fill his own eyes then, burning, and he lets them fall, lifting his hands to his face, crying silently to himself as he sits, helpless, listening to his brother crying too, in the room just beyond.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9:**

"You have a concussion... And a broken nose." The doctor says, shining the light in Bruce's eyes one last time before pocketing it. "The rest is superficial. Though the bruising is going to get ugly before it starts to heal."

Bruce sits, a dazed, confused look on his face, and Steve can hardly blame him.

The _Hulk_ had gotten hurt. The Hulk had suffered a concussion, and a broken nose, and all that awful bruising. All of it remained with Bruce after he had changed back.

Steve wonders when the last time was Bruce had actually been physically hurt.

Probably, he thinks, not since before the Gamma accident.

Thor had done that. Had done all of that with a single blow of his hammer. Had knocked the Hulk clean out.

They really didn't have the first clue what they were dealing with, Steve had realized in the aftermath of the struggle with Loki, and Thor's sudden appearance. They had no damn clue.

He looks around at the rest of the team, getting checked out by Tony's on hand medical staff. Natasha and Clint are standing off in a corner, talking lowly amongst themselves, while Tony himself gets looked over, his face covered in small cuts and abrasions, and his left hand plainly broken. Steve himself had suffered three broken ribs from that kick Loki had landed on him.

None of them were used to this.

And now Thor had Loki, and Steve would be a fool to believe he wasn't going to want some kind of recompense for what they'd done to his brother.

He leans forward on the table where he's sitting, burying his face in his palms.

How the hell had things gotten so out of hand?

He'd been trying to do the right thing. Had thought... stupidly thought, that he was helping Loki, maybe. That he was even maybe getting through to him. And maybe he had been.

Loki had _come_ to them, of his own accord. Had felt comfortable enough to let his guard down around them.

Steve hadn't expected that.

Guilt still churns in his stomach at the thought that it had been him to draw Loki in like that. Like he'd... like he'd set a trap or something, even when that hadn't been his intention at all.

Loki wouldn't believe him. Shouldn't, even.

And Tony had been developing those handcuffs, and he'd used them, and Loki had nearly _died_.

If there had been any chance of reasoning with Loki before, any chance of getting him to turn over a new leaf, Steve thinks it must be long gone.

They would be lucky if Loki and Thor both didn't go on a rampage. Lucky if the two of them didn't decide to reduce this entire planet to dust.

He looks up when he feels someone standing over him, and sees Tony there, his left hand in a cast, his expression, for once, not particularly know it all.

"Hey..." he says, subdued, almost ashamed.

"Hey." Steve says back. He glances at Tony's hand, and feels a swell of sympathy. He isn't going to be able to use it for a while, and he knows that'll drive Tony crazy. "How's the hand?" He asks.

"Broken." Tony says flatly. "Kinda obvious I guess."

Steve just nods.

"How 'bout you? Look's like you've got some broken ribs. Don't think I've ever seen that before."

"Well I guess it's a day for firsts, then." Steve answers, nodding over to Bruce, who's still talking to the doctor.

Tony glances back at him, frowning.

"I knew Thor was powerful, but..." he stops, shaking his head, turning back to Steve. "I fucked up." He says, and he sounds so miserable, Steve actually feels bad for him. "I didn't... I didn't know the cuffs would hurt him like that. I swear. I thought they'd just..."

Steve stares back at him, waiting.

"I don't know what I thought. I should've known. When I tested it on one of Loki's knives, the energy imbued in it just... vanished. Like it had been absorbed. I should've known it would be dangerous to him."

"Maybe." Steve says gloomily, looking away. "But we're all to blame in this. I should have told you and the rest of the team that I'd spoken to Loki. If I'd done that, maybe none of this would have happened."

"... Yeah." Tony says. "Well, there's nothing we can do about any of that now. Just try and fix what we can."

Steve looks at him, surprised.

"Are you..."

"I'm not trashing the tech." Tony shakes his head, and Steve narrows his eyes. "Not yet anyway. Not until we know what Loki and his big bro are gonna do. If they decide they want to destroy the planet, we're going to need some way to stop them."

Steve shakes his head.

"Thor wouldn't..." he starts.

"I don't think he would." Tony interrupts. "But let's be real here Cap. We don't really know Thor all that well. And we certainly don't know Loki well enough to determine what he's going to do. We have to be responsible. I'm not saying I'm going to use the tech again. I doubt I could get anywhere close enough to Loki to use it on him anyway. Not unless I can make it into some sort of projectile..."

"Tony," Steve starts, not liking the direction this conversation in taking suddenly.

Tony puts his hands up, shaking his head.

"No, I'm not thinking in those terms Cap. I don't want to hurt him. If I had to use it again, I'd dial the power of it way back anyway. I'm just trying to be careful."

"It's a weapon Tony. One that's too powerful for us to have." Steve says, standing from the table finally. "If it can hurt, even kill a god... it's too powerful."

Tony grimaces, looking away.

"I don't believe in gods." He says without emotion.

"Whether you believe in them or not Tony, they're here. Thor... Loki... they're straight out of mythology. We're messing with something ancient. Something older than humanity. Being's who's power we've only just begun to realize..."

"And I've found a way to neutralize that power!" Tony turns back to him, voice raising slightly. "We have to be able to defend ourselves Cap."

Steve stiffens.

"Not like this." He shakes his head after a moment. "Loki's been helping us. I think he... I think he wanted to reach out maybe."

"Reach out?" Natasha says, and Steve turns, surprised. He hadn't noticed her approach. Clint is standing beside her, his arms crossed, looking agitated. "You mean join the team?"

"Not exactly." Steve answers. "Just... When I met him, in the library that day, he was... he seemed like he... he was just... happy that someone was talking to him and not... not trying to hurt him."

"You live by the sword you die by it." Clint says evenly. "He's a super villain. Of course people are trying to hurt him. Isn't that like a second profession to those people? Stabbing each other in the back."

Steve looks at him, frowning.

"It's not that. It was different. _He's_ different. You see how he's been helping us. We know now he's powerful enough to take us all out, if he really wanted. But he hasn't. And then there's what Thor said about him, about being tortured. I just... I think there's more going on here than him being _just_ a bad guy."

"And what if there is?" Tony asks, not hostile, but worried sounding. "Okay. So he's maybe not pure evil. That doesn't mean he's not dangerous. And sure, he's been helping us, but Steve, you saw the way he was when he was trying to get out. You saw how freaked out and desperate he was. He isn't stable. Even if he doesn't mean us any harm, a guy like that, with that many problems, you can't trust them _not_ to hurt you."

"He's got a good point Cap." Clint adds.

Steve sighs, frustrated and uncertain.

Tony _does_ have a good point. It would be willful ignorance to deny it. But... he just didn't think trying to control Loki was the solution. They'd just done that, and they could all see where it had gotten them.

He's about to say so when JARVIS interrupts over the loud speaker.

"Sir, Captain Rogers, Director Fury is on the line. He is insisting it's quite urgent."

"Great." Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Just what we need."

"Put him through JARVIS." Steve says.

A moment later, Director Fury's voice comes over the system, sounding harried and rushed.

"I hope you nitwits aren't sitting around playing video games. We've got a situation."

"Happy birthday to you too Director." Tony says, and Steve tells him quickly to shut up.

"What is it Director?" He asks. He prays Fury hasn't already found out about the fiasco with Loki. He doesn't think any of them are really in a mood to explain that particular screw up.

"It's Doom." Fury says flatly. "He's escaped our custody. Left a hell of a mess on the way out too."

"Shit." Clint curses, Natasha straightening beside him.

"Casualties?" She asks.

"Yeah." Fury answers. "At least ten that we've counted so far. Two dozen more seriously injured."

"How did he get out?" Tony starts.

"Doom bots. Attacked the base."

"But how?" Steve asks, brow furrowing in worry. "He was locked up. How could he...?"

"We're still trying to figure that out." Fury cuts him short. "All we know for now is that these drones of his are apparently upgraded. They were sporting some heavy duty fire power too, and if their main objective hadn't been to get Doom out, I'm afraid they could have taken the whole base out with little trouble at all."

"Well that's just preachy." Tony snips. "We barely were able to handle him last time. If it hadn't been for..."

Natasha reaches out, smacking him against the shoulder, and Tony's voice dies away.

Thankfully, Fury doesn't seem to have noticed.

"We don't know where he's headed or what he's planning," the Director goes on. "but I think it's safe to say it probably isn't good. I need your team to be ready Captain."

"Of course." Steve answers. "We're prepared to move out the moment we're needed."

"Well it may be soon." Fury goes on. "So be..."

The Director's voice is cut off by the sudden, almost deafening blare of the tower's alarm, and the team straightens, eye wide.

"JARVIS, what the hell?!" Tony yells over the noise. "What's going on?"

"I think we might've found Doom!" Clint calls out, already jumping to attention, going for his weapon.

"Indeed Sir, Mr. Barton is correct. It would appear the tower is under the attack of Victor Von Doom." The AI informs the team.

"JARVIS, cut the alarm!" Steve commands, grateful when the ear splitting noise goes abruptly silent, though his relief doesn't last long as he asks where the breach had taken place, and JARVIS informs them that Doom has apparently broken through the foundation of the tower, close to Tony's labs.

"How the hell did he manage that?!" Bruce asks, plain alarm in his voice as he pushes himself from the examination table, moving over to the rest of the team. He looks at Tony, as do the rest of them.

Tony shakes his head, his face having gone pale.

"I don't know." He says. "I don't _know_. He shouldn't have been able to. I upgraded the system in accordance with his own tech upgrades. It should be fool proof. I tested it every way I could think of and it held."

"Fury said the Doom bots that attacked headquarters's were upgraded." Natasha says flatly, as usual, no clear emotion in her voice. "Somehow he's been working from his prison cell."

"Well that's just fucking great." Tony says, throwing his hands in the air, his voice unsteady.

And suddenly Steve realizes something that makes the bottom of his stomach drop out from under him, and he looks at Tony hard.

"Tony, please tell me you didn't leave those cuffs in your lab." He says.

Tony's expression is all the answer he needs.

Steve feels his jaw clench, a sick feeling blooming in his chest. How would Doom even know about it? How could he possibly know?

But it didn't matter.

If Doom gets his hands on those cuffs, on that technology...

"Avengers, _move_!" He orders.

They don't need to be told twice, the team falling into formation like the single, fluid unit they've trained themselves to be.

There's an awful dread in the pit of Steve's stomach as he leads the way, and he tries pushing it aside. Doom was about as much as they could handle on good days. And if what Fury said about him having enhanced tech was true... he didn't know how they were going to fair. Didn't know if they could stop the Latverian leader. They've faced greater odds before, Steve tries reminding himself.

All they can do is try.

He shoves his doubts away, concentrating on the task.

They can't let Doom get his hands on that tech.

/

"Loki?" Thor knocks quietly on the door, pushing it open a crack when he hears no reply and looking in. There's a tight knot of apprehension in the pit of his stomach when he doesn't hear Loki call back, and the relief he feels when he sees his brother still there, curled up on the bed, is almost overwhelming.

Thank the Norns.

"Loki." He calls again softly.

His brother is awake, his eyes open, staring blankly ahead at nothing. Still red. Still Jotun. He's got a blanket pulled over himself, up to his shoulder, and Thor wonders vaguely if he's cold, realizing a moment after what an absurd thought that is.

Frost giants were able to withstand temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero.

Still, his brother remains mute, and Thor makes his way over, taking the seat that he'd occupied earlier. Loki turns his face away, pressing it further into the mattress.

Thor hesitates, his hands squeezing together.

He isn't used to feeling so uncertain, so without answers and wrong footed. But with Loki lately... really, all of their lives, he supposes, that's how it's been.

"Brother," he tries again after a moment, keeping his voice soft. It's been well over an hour since he left the room. Eventually, Loki's quiet weeping had ceased, and Thor had remained outside the door to listen, wishing to give his brother more time to himself. At length, though, he hadn't been able to keep away, too concerned. "how do you fair?" He asks.

Loki keeps his face hidden, saying nothing for a long moment.

"You do not wish to kill me?" He at last speaks, voice muffled against the mattress, dry with his earlier crying.

Once more, Thor feels his heart come crashing down, an ugly, awful sick feeling twisting in the pit of his stomach.

"No." He says, and he cannot keep the sadness from his voice. "Loki, I do not wish to kill you, I do not wish to hurt you in any way. You are my brother. I love you beyond saying. But I... I understand where such thoughts in you have come from, and that is to my own shame and grief. When we were children, more shameful still, into my manhood, well into it, I regarded the..." he pauses, stalling his tongue from saying frost giants. "I regarded the Jotnar as base, dumb, unthinking creatures. I truly _believed_ that, and seeing myself as I was then through my eyes now, I scarcely can imagine how ever that was. How ever I could have been so grossly _blind_. But I was. Blind and thoughtless and cruel."

At last, Loki turns his face from the mattress, turning towards him, looking up at him with wary, confused eyes. And Thor can see Loki there, in their expression. Can see the brother he has always known, despite their changed color, and he wonders still more how he ever could have been so blind.

"I thought it too..." Loki says, nearly too soft to hear. "I think it..."

Thor shakes his head.

"Loki, if ever there was proof such beliefs are false, it is you yourself. You are, more than any other I ever have known, as ever you have been, so brilliantly bright."

Loki's mouth opens, as though ready to protest, and Thor quickly cuts him short.

"You are _Jotun_ Loki. You are of that race of whom, for so long, I believed so little. And yet, you have a keenness of mind, a wit and cleverness beyond any god of Asgard. You are possessed of a magical power, and a skill to use that power, beyond any I have ever known. Only our father, only the All-Father has greater power, and even he will admit to a lesser talent than your own. And you are possessed of a poise and grace I rarely have seen in any being, save perhaps our mother. By your very _being_ Loki, you prove utterly false any such notion of the Jotnar as somehow lesser, of being base, uncivilized, brainless brutes. You are the very antithesis of such things. Do you not see?"

For long moments then, Loki only looks at him, his eyes still wet with tears, slipping and freezing down his cheeks, until eventually, slowly, he pushes himself up to sitting, drawing his knees up to his chest. He wraps his arms round his legs, lying his face aside atop his knees.

"I am smarter than you." He says softly, a huff of laughter escaping him after, and Thor can't help but grin, his own laughter bursting past his lips, relief washing through him.

"Assuredly." He says. " _Much_ smarter."

Finally, blessedly, Loki turns his face back towards him, looking at him intently.

There are still lines of anguish in his face, and he looks so young and so miserable, and Thor's heart feels broken at the sight.

"I do not wish to be as this." He says softly, voice a harsh whisper. "It is dangerous. It is dangerous for you."

"Loki, you cannot..." Thor starts, but his brother cuts him off.

"I meant it when I told you I cannot control it. This... this form. The frost giant's are... are able, I think, to alter the temperatures of their skin. I cannot do that. I know not how. I never... I never was shown any... any of this. Never was taught..." his voice trails off, and he looks away, his expression, for a moment, crumpling.

Thor hesitates, fear creeping in at the realization that he doesn't know how to help his brother. Not with this.

"I hate myself." Loki says, voice so strong with conviction that for an instant, Thor feels dizzy with pain.

"Do not do that." He says, voice just as firm. "Loki, do not say such things. You do not mean it."

Loki half chokes a laugh, burying his face against his knees again.

"Loki," Thor starts, frustrated and worried, and then forces himself to stop, knowing he has to choose his words carefully. Trying to badger his brother into an idea, trying to force him to think any certain way, has never worked.

He tries to think.

"Isn't..." he starts, hesitating. "isn't it a form of magic?" He finally ventures, and Loki turns his face back, looking up at him warily. "The Jotnar's ability to create ice, to... to turn their bodies freezing? Isn't it a form of magic?"

Loki blinks, confusion passing over his features for a moment, and then his brow furrows, the familiar expression he always wears when something has caught his interest, and again Thor is struck by how truly unchanged his brother is, how unchanged his appearance, despite his Jotun skin.

"... Perhaps?" He says, but it sounds more like a question. "I never... really thought on it."

"You've always been deeply gifted at elemental magic brother." Thor goes on, almost excited now as the thought becomes more and more plausible to him.

"The elements are your strength Thor, not mine." Loki says, sounding skeptical, and Thor shakes his head.

"Mayhap, aye, but you too are strong in it. Do not feign humility now. You know you have always shown immense ability in calling the elements to your hand and manipulating them how you please. If you had Mjolnir at your disposal as I do, then..." he stops, realizing what he's just said when Loki's face flashes an almost hurt expression before once more turning aside.

"It's alright." He says weakly after a moment.

Inwardly, Thor curses his own clumsy words, biting the inside of his cheek.

"I mean only that..." he starts again slowly. "you have only yourself to direct the elements through, and still you show superb command. Your determination and focus, your talent and imagination as a sorcerer are second to none. If the Jotnar's abilities to manipulate the ice be magical in nature, then I know you can control it Loki. I know it need only take your concentration and will to do so."

"You flatter and think too much of me Thor." Loki says. But he looks thoughtful, plainly considering Thor's supposition, and Thor has to fight to keep from smiling. Even if he's incorrect, he's in the least succeeded for the moment in taking his brother's mind from more threatening thoughts. And that is as it has always been with Loki. Give him a problem to solve, a question to ask over, and it will always serve as an efficient distraction.

Loki's gaze wanders a moment, his face turning down, mouth pulled in a tight line of concentration.

Thor waits, a genuine curiosity of his own blooming as to whether he could be right.

Several minutes pass, Loki perfectly still, his breathes even and slow. Thor remembers how, when they were younger, he had used to grow so bored and frustrated with Loki's meditations, would harass and pester him to give it up and come with him outdoors to spar and go exploring. He remembers how upset Loki would always become at him for breaking his focus.

He very nearly loses his interest now, so much time goes by without his brother making a sound or giving any movement, and he is about to ask Loki if anything is happening, when suddenly the younger god stirs, looking up at him with wide, startled eyes.

"I..." he starts, then stops, swallowing visibly.

Thor looks back at him expectantly.

"Brother, what is it?" He finally asks.

For long seconds still, Loki says nothing, swallowing again, his expression one almost of disbelief, and Thor begins to feel vaguely concerned.

"... I think it worked." Loki at last says, his voice hushed.

"Truly?!" Thor answers, hardly able to suppress the happy laughter in his voice.

Loki gives a weak nod.

"I... I think..."

And Thor notices suddenly, and cannot help himself, excitement overwhelming caution as he reaches out suddenly, wiping at the liquid tears on Loki's cheek.

Loki flinches back, eyes wide, a half strangled "Don't!" slipping past his lips.

Thor pulls his fingers back, holding them up for his brother to see. Loki's skin had been cool, as it always was, but far from freezing, Thor's skin unharmed from the contact.

"You see?" He asks when Loki stares back at his upheld hand, blinking, astonished. "Loki, you've done it. You're controlling it."

Long seconds pass, Loki seeming incredulous and unsure.

"Let me show you?" Thor finally asks, reaching slowly, cautiously for Loki's hand.

His brother again pulls back, uncertain, fear showing plain in his eyes.

"Loki, you have my word, you will not hurt me." Thor says calmly, waiting.

His brother's chest is rising and falling too quickly, and for a long time, he doesn't move, doesn't say anything, and Thor only waits, patient, until at last, Loki shifts, hesitantly reaching his hand back, leaving it there for Thor to take.

Thor does, cupping Loki's hand between both his own.

Loki starts, as though expecting something awful, expecting Thor to jerk away, hissing in pain. But there is no pain, and Thor holds onto him comfortably, until finally his brother seems to believe it, his shoulders visibly slumping in relief.

Thor grins.

"You see?" He says softly, and Loki looks up at him, his eyes over bright with emotion. Thor reaches out, wrapping a hand round the nape of Loki's neck.

"You are stronger than you know brother." He says. "I am proud of you Loki. I am so proud of you."

And he leans in then, wrapping his arms round his brother, pulling him tight against him in an embrace.

And it is as the greatest burden lifting from his chest when he feels Loki embrace him in return.

/

 **AN: As always, huge thanks to all my readers. Your support means so much to me! I hope you continue to enjoy, and if you have a chance, leave me your thoughts!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10:**

It takes them nearly a week to find Thor. To warn him.

They hadn't been able to do a damn thing about Doom. Hadn't been able to stop him.

He'd shoved them aside like they were nothing more than annoying gnats. By the time they'd recovered themselves enough to stand again, the dictator had been gone, Tony's cuffs with him.

It hadn't taken long after that for the infighting to start. The bickering and indecision and fear had been excruciating and, in retrospect, a sickening waste of time. Though Steve knows deep down it wouldn't have really made a difference. Not now.

Eventually he'd put his foot down and told everyone to shut up and shape up.

" _We just lost what might be the most powerful piece of technology on this planet to a madman._ " He'd said, and that had sobered everyone up in short order. " _We know he and Loki have some sort of bad blood between them, and we know the tech almost killed Loki when we used it on him. We have a serious problem._ "

That had only started another round of bickering and arguing, Clint and Bruce wondering aloud why they should even care. Arguing that Loki was a bad guy, and when had they started treating him like he wasn't. Steve and Tony arguing back that since the tech even existing in the first place was _their_ doing, that whatever Doom used it to cause harm to was their responsibility, that included harming Loki, bad guy or no.

Eventually, if grudgingly, both Clint and Bruce had come around to agreeing they had to at least get a message to the god, or to his brother, about what had happened. And from there try to deal with it.

None of them had had any illusions about being able to get through to Loki on their own. Not after what had happened. They knew he wouldn't want anything to do with them. But if they could have talked to Thor...

Only they'd realized then that no one on the team had ever bothered asking Thor where he lived.

Most of the time, when he'd been on Earth, he'd simply stayed at the tower, and no one had ever felt it was their business to intrude on his private life. All they knew was that he had a private apartment somewhere in the city, and that sometimes he stayed with Jane Foster, in whatever part of the world she happened to be in at the time.

They'd made the attempt then to find him on their own, hoping that maybe he'd simply gone back to Asgard with Loki, where they would be safe from Doom.

After almost five days, Tony had finally been able to locate Thor, with JARVIS' help, and they'd rushed immediately to the complex he was staying in.

To say the god was unhappy to see them would have been a vast understatement.

He stares down at the lot of them from the threshold of his front door, his face set in a deep frown, eyes stormy.

"You are unwanted here, comrades." He says flatly. "How have you come to discover my place of dwelling?"

"You really need to ask Thunderstruck?" Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest.

It never fails to amaze Steve, just how much moxie Tony has, for such a little guy. Thor positively dwarfs him, and yet Tony never seems to let it intimidate him, not in the least, despite it being at times painfully obvious Thor likes him little.

One of those times being now, the god's eyes shifting to Tony and staring with plain displeasure down at him.

Steve can't help but notice the way Thor's fingers tighten over the door's frame where he's lain his hand to block their coming into the apartment.

The wood gives an ominous creak.

"Thor," Steve starts, feeling an awful sense of urgency, knowing they don't have time for this stupid fighting.

"What business do you have here?" Thor cuts him off sharply, turning his attention back to the Captain. "If you seek my brother, if you intend my brother harm in any manner, I warn you, you have made a grave error in..."

"We aren't here to hurt your brother Thor." Natasha says, pushing herself to the front of the group. "We're here to warn him. And you too."

Thor's frown, if possible, deepens, and the wood beneath his hand cracks like flimsy plastic.

"You _dare_ come here to issue threat against..." he begins, and once again there is a crack of thunder from outside, so powerful it sounds as if it's right above their heads, in the hallway. All of them flinch almost violently at the noise.

"We aren't threatening you!" Steve begins frantically, holding his hands up, palms out. "We mean against someone else!"

" _Who_?" Thor practically hisses between his teeth.

"Is your baby bro home too?" Tony asks, standing on tip toe to try and see over Thor's shoulder. "He probably needs to hear this also."

"If you seek to force your way past me..." Thor starts.

Only this time he's disrupted by a soft voice coming from within the apartment, unmistakably belonging to Loki.

"Thor..." he says.

Thor doesn't move from his spot, but turns his head to look back behind him.

"You needn't protect me. I no longer am a child."

"Loki, do not..." Thor begins, but a moment later, Loki is squeezing himself into the door frame beside his much larger brother, standing face to face with Steve and the rest of the team.

If he's at all afraid, he shows nothing of it.

Only he looks terrible. Horribly thin, face gaunt and seemingly exhausted. There are heavy bags underneath his eyes, and he's wearing what's obviously Thor's own clothing, a t-shirt far too large for him hanging off his thin shoulders and pooling around his torso like a sack cloth.

Beside Thor's massive bulk, he looks almost like a child.

His eyes though burn that shocking, unnatural green, and he stares back at them unflinchingly, frighteningly determined. Despite his wasted state, he's still a sight to behold.

"You will not intimidate me." He says haughtily, regarding each of them with obvious disdain. "What reason have you to come here? If you think, because you managed to deceive me in our last encounter, you will do so again, than you are dangerously mistaken. Any move you make either against myself or my brother will be taken as a declaration of war. And you do not wish to engage the son's of Odin in battle, foolish mortals. I am much recovered from our last meeting. Do not make the error of thinking me as weak."

Steve shakes his head, frustrated and growing more uneasy by the moment.

"We aren't here to issue threats, or to try to take you in anywhere Loki." He looks at both gods, refusing to avert his eyes. "We have a problem. The technology Tony developed which managed to drain your magic..."

Thor steps forward at the words, his massive frame looming with clear threat, and Steve struggles not to step back, even as the rest of the team does.

"What games do you play Steven?" He asks.

"No games." Steve answers hastily. "The tech was stolen. The same day you took Loki out of the tower. It's..."

"Stolen by whom?" Loki cuts him off, and there is suddenly clear alarm in his eyes, his face, if possible, growing more pale.

Steve opens his mouth to answer.

He doesn't get the chance to say a single word.

There is a soft ding from down the hallway, the sound of the elevator coming open.

That's all the warning any of them get.

Steve watches as Dr. Doom steps out onto the floor, looking like some sort of illusion, the massive bulk of his armor seeming too large for the cramped space as he begins walking leisurely in their direction.

"Son of a bitch!" Tony curses, the mask of his suit coming down as he throws a hand out, the charge of his repulser blast filling Steve's ears, ready to loose.

That lasts hardly a moment before being drowned out by a deafening roar, coming somehow through the walls of the apartment complex, followed seconds later by the unbearable screech of metal and drywall and wood rending apart.

Steve looks up in alarm as powerful blasts of energy come tearing through the walls, blowing everything in their path to pieces, and sees above, the roof being torn asunder by thick metal fingers, a stream of Doombots pouring through the freshly torn holes an instant after.

They attack with immediacy and ferociously, even as Tony blasts Doom with his repulsors.

The dictator bats the blast of energy aside like it's nothing, before unleashing his own blast of energy towards Tony.

"Loki, wait!" He hears Thor's voice cry out, strangled, and Steve turns just in time to see two dozen robots attack the thunder god, his giant frame disappearing underneath the mass of them, even as Loki moves, so fast, Steve can't even begin to track his movements.

He leaps in front of Tony, Doom's blast hitting him square in the chest, and Steve's breath catches suddenly in his throat as Loki drops to one knee, hot steam rising off his chest where the blast hit, the god's face twisted in obvious pain and anger.

Doom lets fly another blast, and Loki barely has time to throw up a hand, a shield of green and gold energy forming, the dictator's blast bouncing off of it almost comically, ricocheting back at Doom.

Doom smacks it away, his face hidden and impassive behind his metal mask as he continues to advance forward.

Loki, somehow, pushes himself to his feet, though it's obvious that he isn't nearly as strong as usual, the movement labored, his legs seeming, for a moment, to shake beneath him before he forces himself to straighten. He moves towards Doom without hesitation, knives forming from thin air in his hands.

"Loki!" He shouts, his stomach dropping out from underneath him.

No, he thinks. No, it's a trap. A _trap_. Loki doesn't know. He doesn't realize that it's Doom who has Tony's tech. Doesn't realize.

It's all the time he has to give warning before a horde of Doombots fall on him, and on everyone else, attacking like they mean to take lives.

He only catches glimpses of Loki's approach towards the real Doom then, too busy fighting the robots off of himself to keep his eyes on the younger brother. But he sees enough to realize that Loki is dodging Doom's energy blasts, ducking and sidestepping them with a casual ease which seems impossible, letting loose blade after blade at the dictator as they move ever closer to one another.

Steve can barely catch his breath, wave after wave of Doombot distracting him entirely, so that he cannot even find a moment to cry out to Thor's brother, to stop him.

He turns, searching frantically for Thor, to scream to him, but he can't see his teammate anywhere, too much chaos and violence erupting around him, Thor no where in sight.

He looks back to Loki, a sickening dread taking hold his heart, even as he's torn from it by a Doombot wrapping it's hands round his throat, and he struggles for several seconds to throw the thing off.

By the time he does, by the time he has his eyes on Loki again, the god and Doom are standing only feet apart, and Steve sees Loki say something. Only he can't make out anything, can't hear a damn thing in all this noise.

Only knows the moment he sees Doom reach for Loki, knows Loki doesn't understand, doesn't realize as he stands his ground.

Steve struggles desperately to break free from the Doombots surrounding him, keeping him pinned. Tries with everything he has.

It isn't enough.

Doom latches onto Loki, onto his forearm, Loki's face twisting with hatred, lifting his hand to strike.

It's obvious when Loki realizes at last that something is wrong.

For an instant, his face goes slack, all expression falling from it, and Steve sees a surge of red light sleuthing off from where Doom's metal fingers are wrapped round the god's arm, pouring into him, seeping into his skin.

Loki gasps, loud enough for Steve to hear, the sound high and sharp and desperate. His eyes widen, pupils blowing out instantly, swallowing the green of his iris', his skin draining of color entirely.

His mouth falls open then, like he's trying to scream, like he did the first time, when Tony had snapped the cuffs over his wrists. Only no sound comes now. Nothing. Only his mouth hung open, the color gone from his face.

When he finally crumples to his knees, it's in that same moment the world for Steve goes black.

/

He cannot breathe, and he knows in that moment that he has made a grave error in judgment.

Hardly new for him. Only the humiliation that it is his second such error at the hands of a mortal burns more deeply than he thinks he can bear, and he would decry his own stupidity were he able to find his voice at all.

"Foolish mortal," he had hisses at Doom, sure in his power, sure in his superiority. "you dare show your face again to me..."

And then Doom had reached out, had wrapped his armored hand round his arm, and Loki had, in an instant, known horror.

Fear had been like a lance through his heart as he'd felt the same, overpowering surge of energy through him, tearing his magic forcibly from his core and away.

He had thought, for an idiotically hopeful moment, that it wasn't real. That he was only recalling with awful clarity what had happened before, at the hands of the Avengers. That there sudden appearance had triggered the memory in his mind. Only that hope had faded quickly, and then, like a pathetic child, he had let his terror overcome him, and he had tried desperately calling out to Thor, crying out to him for help.

But his voice had failed him again, and the pain had become too much, his insides feeling set aflame by the fires of Muspelheim as his strength too had abandoned him and he felt himself falling.

He falls to one knee, quickly then the other, his strength leaving him with alarming rapidity.

No, Loki thinks. No, he cannot... cannot let Doom have him. Will not...

He reaches up, his fingers wrapping round Doom's encased arm, crushing down with all his strength, crushing down to the fragile flesh and bone beneath, until he can feel the limb give way beneath his grip, and he hears with grim satisfaction the strangled, choked gasp of the mortal above him, his own grip round Loki's arm instantly loosening as he tries to fall back, to pull his arm free.

Only Loki refuses to let go, crushing down harder, until he hears Doom's strangled cry erupt into a horrified scream.

Loki lunges, lashing out with his now free hand, sinking his fingers into Doom's mask, tearing at it.

"NO!" Doom cries, bringing his metal fist down along the crown of Loki's head.

But still Loki refuses to release him, pushing himself to his feet, shoving past the weakness he feels, even as Doom smashes him now across the temple, and another blow backhanded across his mouth, the taste of copper washing over his tongue.

"You... _dare_..." Loki spits, and the sound of metal groaning under pressure fills the air, Doom's mask beginning to pull free.

He'll destroy him, Loki thinks. He's grind his bones to dust and scatter his useless remains into the void. He'll...

His thoughts shatter into nothing as something powerfully strong wraps round his chest from behind, and another, more powerful surge of the same magic draining energy rips through his body.

And it's too much.

Loki struggles. Tries with all his strength to hold on. But he can feel the darkness seeping in at the edges of his vision and knows he's lost...

He's lost...

He thinks about Thor before blackness consumes him completely.

He hopes his brother isn't too disappointed in him.

He hopes Thor doesn't mourn too greatly.

/

 **AN: So Doom, right? What a dick. As always, thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy! I'm sorry for the long wait between chapters. But if you've got time, let me know what you think, and thanks again!**


End file.
